PRECIOUS THOUGHTS 

3l\mi niii lldigiaiis. 



GATHERED FROM THE WORKS OF 

J H N ^R U S K I N , A . M 



BY " 

Mrs. Lr CrTUTHILL. 



V 



.J 



'■' A verj' Sea of Thought ; neither calm nor clear, if you will, yet wherein Ihe toughest 
pearl-diver may dive to his utmost depth, and return not only with sea-wreck but with 
true orients." 

Sartor Resartus. 



l\\ 



NEW YORK: 
JOHN WILEY & SOX, 535 BROADWAY. 

1866. 



^^■9 0j-3a-m 



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ip'ii 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

JOHX WILEY & SON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



3^>^ 2^ S^ 






X 



PREFATORY 



Much time is wasted by liumari beings, in general, on 
establishment of systems ; and it often takes more labour 
to master the intricacies of an artificial connexion, than to 
remember the separate facts which are so carefully con- 
nected. I suspect that system-makers, in general, are not 
of much more use, each in his own domain, than, in that 
of Pomona, the old women who tie cherries upon sticks, 
for the more convenient portableness of the same. To 
cultivate well, and choose well, your cherries, is of some 
importance ; but if they can be had in their own wild way 
of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is a better con- 
nexion for them than any other ; and, if they cannot, then, 
so that they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a practi- 
cal disposition, not much difference whether he gets them 
by handfuls^'^ or in beaded symmetry on the exalting stick. 
I purpose, therefore, henceforward to trouble myself little 
with sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters with a 
view to convenient reference, rather than to any careful 
division of subjects, and to follow out, in any by-ways that 
may open, on right hand or left, whatever question it 
seems useful at any moment to settle. 

* OYhasketfuIs? 



DEDICATORY AND EXPLAKATORY. 



S. S. B. 

The volume of Selections from the numerous works of John Rusktk, 
"wMcli was published some years since, I devoted mainly to " Nature " and 
to "Art," Ruskin's specialty, leaving only a small portion of the book to 
"Morals" and "Religion." Consequently, manifold thoughts, on these lat- 
ter topics, remained in those voluminous works as hidden treasure, inac- 
cessible to the many — thoughts valuable to the Christian philosopher, the 
statesman, and, indeed, to readers in general. 

"Without repeating any of the former selections, I have culled from that 
great treasure-house of thought the gems for this volume, which I take 
special pleasure in dedicating to you, my dear S., as an appreciative admirer 
of the writings of John Ruskin. 

Afifectionately and fervently yours, 

LOUISA 0. TUTHILL. 
Princeton, N. J. 



CONTENTS. 



A. 



Admiration, natural, 152. 

Advancement, 3. 

All carving and no meat, 18. 

All things liave their place, 235. 

Alpine peasant, the, 135. 

Angel of the sea, the, 7 

Asceticism, 264. 

Associations of beauty, 34 

AssociatioDS, human, 58. 

Assimilation and individuality, 250. 



B. 



Beauty, the Christian theory of, 116. 
Beauty, associations of, 34. 
Be what nature intended, 56. 
Boyhoods, the two, 325. 
Brotherhood, 107. 

Browning's appeal for Italy, Mrs., 
181. 



Candid seeing, 120. 

Care for posterity, 310. 

Cathedrals, the old, 228. 

Cheerfulness, 265. 

Church, the, 31. 

Church, the true, 78. 

Church, in the New Testament, the, 

53. 
Church, members of the, 76. 
Classical, the, 201. 
Clergymen, 32, 
Cloud-balancings, 80. 
Clouds as God's dweUing-place, 285. 
Colour, the sanctity of, 58. 



Colour, the nobleness of, 106. 

Companionship with nature, 77. 

Concession and companionship, 211. 

Criticism, base, 50. 

Criticism, just, 22. 

Craig EUachie I stand fast, 301. 



D. 



Dante, Spenser and, 183. 

Dark signs of the times, 41. 

Death, fear of, 88. 

Defenders of the dead, 130. 

Development, 99. 

Downright facts plainly told, 1. 

Discernment of Christian character, 

76. 
Divine law, 30. 

Discipline and interference, 230. 
Dissectors and the dreamers, the, 34. 
Division of labour, 206. 
Doers, 15. 

Doubts, pagan, 297. 
Dreamers, 225. 
Durer and Salvator, 302. 



E. 



Education, modern, 44. 

Education, the pagan system of, 342. 

Earth's children, the humblest of 
the, 13. 

Earth-veil, the, 92. 

Emotion, ignoble, 195. 

Emotions excited by the imagina- 
tion, 280. 

Entanglement, modern, 150. 



VUl 



CONTENTS. 



F. 



Facts, seeking for, 128. 
Faith, truth, and obedience, 2. 
Fancy and reahty, 265. 
Fear of death, 88. 
Flowers, 19. 
Flowers, the love of, 91. 
Food of the soul, the, 205. 
Formative period, the, 132. 



G. 



Generalization, right, 131. 
Gentleman, the true, 155. 
Genius, the man of, 200. 
Gloom, 311. 

God's place in the human heart, 75. 
Goodness of God in creation, 244. 
Government, the Divine, 151. 
Government, the principles of good, 

247. 
Good teaching, 134. 
Greatness and minuteness, 6. 
Gradation, 103. 
Great results, 4. 



Harvest is ripe, the, 109. 

Helpful or the Holy One, the, 19. 

Highlander, the, 275. 

How to hve, 119. 

Household altar, the, 279. 

Human beings, three orders of, 152. 

Human heart, God's place in the, 75. 



Idolatry, 240. 

Infidelity, 315. 

Infidelity in England, 105. 

Infidel creed, the modern, 210. 

Influence of custom, 98. 

Infinity, 66. 

Intemperance, 121. 

Involuntary instruments of good, 

257. 
Individuahty, assimilation and, 250. 
Illustrations from the Bible, 33. 



Imagination, 139. 

Imagination, emotions excited by 

the, 280. 
Imagination, excitement of the, 68. 
Imperfection, 12. 
Italy, Mi-s. Browning's appeal for,'^ 

181. 
Interference, Discii^line and, 230. 



Judg-ment, mercy, and truth, 14. 
Justice to the hving, 129. 
Justice, mercy, and truth, 204. 



K. 

King's messengers, the, 32. 
Knowledge, the noble ends of, 286. 
Knowledge, partial, 21. 
Knowledge, practical, 49. 
Knowledge, progressive, 193. 



Labour in little things, 40. 

Law or loyalty, obedience to, 242. 

Life, 251. 

Life, human, 263. 

Life and love, 110. 

Life never a jest, 281. 

Life, the tvpe of strong and noble, 

148. 
"Let alone" principle, the, 229. 
Lessons from leaves, 9. 
Lessons from rocks, 232. 
Liberty, true, 72. 
Liberty, the best kind of, 179. 
Love and fear, 255. 
Love and trust, 104. 
Love of change, 137, 197. 
Love of Nature, 43. 
Loss, 180. 



M. 

Man the image of God, 222. 

Man of genius, the, 200. 

Man's delight in God's works, 272. 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Man's nature, 120. 
Man's isolation, 220. 
Manual labour, 48. 
Men of gross minds, 39. 
Mark, St., 20. 

Making a right choice, 132. 
Mercantile panics, 28. 
Missing the mark, 109. 
Modern entanglement, 150. 
Modern greatness, 149. 
Mother-nation, the, 203. 
Mountain influence, 214. 
Mystery of clearness, the, 20. 
Mystery in language, 235. 
Mystery and unity, 11. 



Nature, love of, 43. 
Nature, companionship with, ^7. 
Nature, explaining, 90. 
Nation's place in history, a, 141. 
Nearness and distance, 66. 
Nebuchadnezzar curse, the, 23. 
Novelty, 67. 



0. 



Obedience to law, or loyalty, 242. 
Obedience, faith, truth, and, 2. 
Opinions, 35. 



Pagan doubts, 297. 

Pagan system of education, the, 342. 

Patronage of Art, 77. 

Peace and war, 68. 

Pedestrians, 39. 

Perfect and partial truth, 236. 

Pictures, the use of, 117. 

Pines and the Swiss, 114. 

Pine trees, 9. 

Plagiarism, 228. 

Pleasures of sight, the, 70. 

Political economy, 52. 

Power of intellect, 191. 

Poor, oppression of the, 23. 

Poor? who are the, 25. 

Posterity, care for, 310. 



Psalm, the nineteenth, 123. 

Practical knowledge, 49. 

Presence of God, 270. 

Precipices, 116. 

Pride, 71. 

Prophetic designers, 204. 

Prophetic dreams, 299. 

Public favour, 51. 

Purist and the sensualist, the, 143. 

Pre-eminence of the soul, the, 283. 



Quietness, 155. 



Q. 



R. 



Eainbow, the, 107. 

Recreation, 89. 

Reality, 236. 

Reality, fancy and, 265. 

Respect for the dead, 237. 

Respectability of artists, 35. 

Responsibility of a rich man, 45. 

Reformation, the, 153. 

Religion, influence of art on, 179. 

Reverence, 233. 

Right generalization, 131. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 139. 



S. 



Sacrifice, the spirit of, 257. 

Sailors' superstitions, 57. 

St. Mark, 20. 

Satan, Milton's and Dante's, 271. 

Sanctification, 118. 

Science, 65. 

Science and art, the real use of, 100. 

Seeking for facts, 128. 

Seriousness and levity, 134. 

Self-government, 120. 

Self-knowledge, want of, 45. 

Shamefacedness, 221. 

Simplicity, 197. 

Smoke and the whirlwind, 150. 

"Stand fast, Craig Ellachiel" 301. 

Sight, the pleasures of, 70. 

Spenser, theology of, 344. 

Spenser, Dante and, 183. 



CONTENTS. 



States of the forest, the, 341. 
Striving after perfection, 112. 
Speculations, 54. 
Sublimity, 12. 
Symbol of fear, the, 101. 
SymboHsm, Christian, 300. 



T. 



Thankfulness, 300. 

Theory of beauty, the Christian, 176. 

The thinker and the perceiver, 140. 

" Thy Kingdom come," 59. 

Tithes, 278. 

Towers of rock, 136. 

Trees and communities, 142. 

Trees, pine, 9. 

Trees, sacred associations with olive, 

196. 
Trifles, care for, 302. 
True contentment, 4. 
The truth of truths, 74. 
Truth, nothing but, 313. 
Truth, symbols of. 111. 
Truth, perfect and partial, 236. 
Types, 89. 



U 



Utilitarianism, 282. 
Unkindness, the memory of, 41. 



V. 

Visible and the tangible, the, 148. 
Virtues squared and counted, 168. 
Voluntarily admitted restraints, 191. 
Vulgarity, 64. 
Vulgar fractions, 42. 

W. 

War, 37. 

War, peace and, 68. 

War, advantages of, 38. 

Wants of modern art, 46. 

Warning, a solemn, 251. 

Wealth, 40. 

Weak things made strong, 73. 

What use? 297. 

Work and play, 336. 

Work, the necessity of, 36. 

World a hostelry, this, 285, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 



DOWNRIGHT FACTS PLAINLY TOLD. 

I HATE been mucli impressed lately by one of the results of 
the quantity of our books ; namely, the stern impossibility 
of getting anything understood, that required patience to 
understand. I observe always, in the case of my own writ- 
ings, that if ever I state anything which has cost me any trou- 
ble to ascertain, and which, therefore, will probably require a 
minute or two of reflection from tlie reader before it can be 
accepted, — that statement will not only be misunderstood, 
but in all probability taken to mean something very nearly 
the reverse of what it does mean. Now, whatever faults 
there may be in my modes of expression, I know that the 
words I use will always be found, by Jolmson's dictionary, 
to bear, first of all, the sense I use them in; and that the 
sentences, whether awkwardly turned or not, will, by the 
ordinary rules of grammar, bear no other interpretation than 
that I mean them to bear; so that the misunderstanding of 
them must result, ultimately, from the mere fact that their 
matter sometimes requires a little patience. And I see the 
same kind of misinterpretation put on the words of other 
writers, whenever tliey i-equire the same kind of thought. 

I was at first a little despondent about this ; but, on the 
wliole, I believe it will have a good effect upon our literature 
for some time to come ; and then, perhaps, the public may 
recover its patience again. For certaiidy it is excellent dis- 



2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

cipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say 
in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip 
them ; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will 
certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright 
fact may be told in a plain way ; and we want downright 
facts at present more than anything else. 



FAITH, TRUTH, AND OBEDIENCE. 

In the pressing or recommending of any act or manner of 
acting, we have choice of two separate lines of argument : 
one based on representation of the expediency or inherent 
value of the work, which is often small, and always disputa- 
ble ; the other baser! on j^roofs of its relations to the higher 
orders of human virtue, and of its acceptableness, so far as it 
goes, to Him who is the origin of virtue. The former is 
commonly the more persuasive method, the latter assuredly 
the more conclusive ; only it is liable to give offence, as if 
there were irreverence in adducing considerations so weighty 
in treating subjects of small temporal importance. I believe, 
however, that no error is more thoughtless than this. What 
is true of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation. I have 
been blamed for the familiar introduction of its sacred words. 
I am grieved to have given pain by so doing ; but my excuse 
must be my wish that those words were made the ground of 
every argument and the test of every action. We have them 
not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough in our memo- 
ries, nor loyally enough in our lives. The snow, the vapor, and 
the stormy wind fulfil His word. Are our acts and thoughts 
lighter and wilder than these — that we should forget it? 

I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giving to some pas- 



^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3 

sages the appearance of irreverence, to take the higher line 
of argument whereyer it appeared clearly traceable ; and this, 
I would ask the reader especially to observe, not nierely 
because I think it the best mode of reaching ultimate truth, 
still less because I think the subject of more importance than 
many others; but because every subject should surely, at a 
period like the present, be taken up in this spirit, or not at all. 
The aspect of the years that approach us is as solemn as it is 
full of mystery; and the weight of evil against which we have 
to contend, is increasing like the letting out of water. It is 
no time for the idleness of metaphysics, or the entertainment 
of the arts. The blasphemies of the earth are sounding- 
louder, and its miseries heaped heavier every day; and if, in 
the midst of the exertion which every good man is called 
upon to put forth for their repression or relief, it is lawful to 
ask for a thought, for a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in 
any direction but that of the immediate and overwhelming- 
need, it is at least incumbent upon us to approach the ques- 
tions in which we v/ould engage him, in the spirit which has 
become the habit of his mind, and in the hope that neither 
his zeal nor his usefulness may be checked by the withdrawal 
of an hour whicli has shown him how even those things 
which seemed mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend 
for their perfection upon the acknowledgment of the sacred 
principles of faith, truth, and obedience, for which it has been 
the occupation of his life to contend. 



ADVANCEMENT. 



Between youth and age there will be found differences of 
seeking, which are not wrong, nor of false choice in either, 



4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

but of different temperament, the youth sympathizing more 
with the gladness, fulness, and magnificence of things, and 
the gray hairs with their completion, sufficiency, and repose. 
And so, neither condemning the delights of othei-s, nor alto- 
gether distrustful of our own, we must advance, as we live 
on, from what is brilliant to what is pure, and from what is 
promised to what is fulfilled, and from what is our strength 
to Avhat is our crown, only observing in all things how that 
which is indeed wrong, and to be cut up from the root, is dis- 
like, and not affection. 



GREAT RESULTS. 



Men often look to bring about great results by violent and 
unprepared effort. But it is only in fair and forecast order, 
" as the earth bringeth forth her bud," that righteousness 
and praise may spring forth before the nations. 



TRUE CONTEXTMENT. 

The things to be desired for man in a healthy state, are 
that he should not see dreams, but realities; that he should 
not destroy life, but save it ; and that he should be not rich, 
but content. 

Towards which last state of contentment I do not see that 
the world is at present approximating. There are, indeed, 
two forms of discontent ; one laborious, the other indolent 
and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, 
but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 5 

ambition meekness. It is because of the special connexion 
of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the 
meek shall " inherit the earth." Neither covetous men nor 
the Grave, can inherit anything ;* they can but con- 
sume. Only contentment can possess. 

The most helpful and sacred work, therefore, which can at 
present be done for humanity, is to teach people (chiefly by 
example, as all best teaching must be done) not how " to bet- 
ter themselves," but how to " satisfy themselves." It is the 
curse of every evil nation and evil creature to eat, and not 
be satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall eat 
and be satisfied. And as there is only one kind of water 
which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread 
which satisfies all hunger, the bread of justice or righteous- 
ness ; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, 
that being the bread of Heaven ; but hungering after the 
bread, or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that 
being the bread of Sodom. 

And, in order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is neces- 
sary fully to understand the art and joy of humble life,— this, 
at present, of all arts or sciences being the one most needing 
study. Humble life — that is to say, proposing to itself no 
future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance ; not exclud- 
ing the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, and tak- 
ing no troublous thought for coming days : so, also, not 
excluding the idea of providence, or provision,! but wholly 
of accumulation ; — the life of domestic aflTection and domes- 
tic peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and 

* *' There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say 
not, It is enougli : the grave ; and the barren womb ; the earth that is not 
filled with water ; and the fire, that saith not, It is enough 1 " 

\ A bad word, being only "foresight" again in Latin; but we have no 
other good English word for the sense into which it has been warped. 



6 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

kind pleasure; — therefore, chiefly to the loveliness of the 
natural world. 

What length and severity of labor may be ultimately found 
necessary for the procuring of the due comforts of life, I do 
not know ; neither what degree of refinement it is possible to 
unite with the so-called servile occupations of life : but this I 
know, that right economy of labor will, as it is understood, 
assign to each man as much as will be healthy for him, and 
no more ; and that no refinements are desirable which cannot 
be connected with toil. 



GREATNESS AND MINUTENESS. 

In one sense, and that deep, there is no such thing as mag- 
nitude. The least thing is as the greatest, and one day as a 
thousand years, in the eyes of the Maker of great and small 
things. In another sense, and that close to us and necessary, 
there exist both magnitude and value. Though not a spar- 
row falls to the ground unnoted, there are yet creatures who 
are of more value than many; and the same Spirit Avhich 
weighs the dust of the earth in a balance, counts the isles as 
a little thing. 

The just temper of human mind in this matter may, never- 
theless, be told shortly. Greatness can only be rightly esti- 
mated when minuteness is justly reverenced. Greatness is 
the aggregation of minuteness ; nor can its sublimity be felt 
truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate 
watching of what is least. 

I have noticed lately, that some lightly-budding philoso* 
j^hers have depreciated true greatness ; confusing the rela- 
tions of scale, as they bear upon human instinct and morality; 



TRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 7 

reasoning as if a mountain were no nobler than a grain of 
sand, or as if many souls were not of mightier interest than 
one. To whom it must be shortly answered that the Lord 
of power and life knew whicb were his noblest works, when 
He bade His servant watch the play of the Leviathan, rather 
than dissect the spawn of the minnow; and that when it 
comes to practical question whether a single soul is to be 
jeoparded for many, and this Leonidas, or Curtius, or Win- 
kelried shall abolish — so far as abolishable — his own spirit, 
that he may save more numerous spirits, such question is to 
be solved by the simple human instinct respecting number 
and magnitude, not by reasonings on infinity. 



THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. 

The great Angel of the Sea — rain ; — the Angel observe, 
the messenger sent to a special place on a special errand. 
'Not the diffused perpetual presence of the burden of mist, 
but the going and returning of intermittent cloud. All turns 
upon that intermittence. Soft moss on stone and rock ; — 
cave-fern of tangled glen ; — wayside well — perennial, patient, 
silent, clear; stealing through its square font of rough-hewn 
stone ; ever thus deep — no more — which the winter wreck 
sullies not, the summer thirst wastes not, incapable of stain 
as of decline — where the fallen leaf floats undecayed, and the 
insect darts undefiling. Cressed brook and ever-eddying 
river, lifted even in flood scarcely over its stepping-stones, — 
but through all sweet summer keeping tremulous music with 
harp-strings of dark water among the silver fingering of the 
pebbles. Far away in the south the strong river Gods have 
all hasted, and gone down to the sea. Wasted and buriiing, 



8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

white furnaces of blasting sand, their broad beds lie ghastiy 
and bare ; but here the soft wings of the Sea Angel droop 
still with dew, and the shadows of their plumes falter on the 
hills : strange laughings, and glitterings of silver streamlets, 
born suddenly, and twined about the mossy lieigbts in trick- 
ling tinsel, answering to them as they wave. 

Xor are those wings colorless. We habitually think of the 
rain-cloud only as dark and gray; not knowing that we owe 
to it perhaps the fairest, though not the most dazzling of the 
hues of heaven. Often in our Englii^h mornings, the rain- 
clouds in the dawn form soft level fields, which melt imper- 
ceptibly into the blue ; or when of less extent, gather into 
apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above ; 
and all tlies;e bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of 
pure rose-color, and purple, and amber, and blue ; not shin- 
ing, but misty-soft ; tlie bai'red masses, when seen nearer, 
composed of clusters or tresses of cloud, like floss silk ; look- 
ing as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted 
rain. No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, 
inimitable. ^ 

For these are the robes of love of the Angel of the Sea. 
To these that name is chiefly given, the " spreadings of the 
clouds," from their extent, tlieir gentleness, their fidness of 
rain. Note how they are spoken of in Job, xxxvi, v. 29-31. 
"By them judgeth he the people; he giveth meat in abun- 
dance. With clouds he covereth the light. He hath hidden 
the light in his hands, and commanded that it should return. 
He speaks of it to his friend ; that it is his possession, and 
that he may ascend thereto." 

That, then, is the Sea Angel's message to God's friends ; 
that^ the meaning of those strange golden lights and purple 
flashes before the morning rain. The rain is sent to judge, 
and feed us ; but the light is the possession of the friends of 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



God, and the}^ may ascend thereto, — where the tabernacL 
veil will cross and part its rays no more. 



PINE TKEES. 



Magnificent ! — nay, sometimes, almost terrible. Other 
trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and sway of the 
ground, clothe it with soft compliance, are partly its subjects, 
partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises 
in serene resistance, self-contained ; nor can I ever without 
awe stay long under a great Alpine cliif, for from all house or 
work of men, looking up to its companies of pine, as they 
stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the 
enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of 
the one beside it — upright, fixed, spectral, as troops of ghosts 
standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other — 
dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to them ; 
— those trees never heard human voice ; they are far above 
all sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf 
of theirs. All comfortless they stand, between the two eter- 
nities of the Vacancy and the Rock : yet with such iron will, 
that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them — 
fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of 
delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride: — unnum- 
bered, unconquerable. 



LESSONS FROM LEAVES. 



We men, sometimes, in what Ave presume to be humility, 
comDare ourselves with leaves ; but we have as yet no right 

1* 



10 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

to do SO. The leaves may well scorn the comparison. We 
who live for ourselves, and neither know how to use nor keep 
the work of past time, may humbly learn, — as from the ant, 
foresight, — from the leaf, reverence. The power of every 
great people, as of every living tree, depends on its not effac- 
ing, but confirming and concluding, the labors of its ances- 
tors. Looking back to the history of nations, we may date 
the beginning of their decline from the moment when they 
ceased to be revei'ent in heart, and accumulative in hand and 
brain ; from the moment when the redundant fruit of age hid 
in them the hollowness of heart, whence the simplicities of 
custom and sinews of tradition had withered away. Had 
men but guarded the righteous laws, and protected the pre- 
cious works of their fathers, with half the industry they have 
given to change and to ravage, they would not now have been 
seeking vainly, in millennial visions and mechanic servitudes, 
the accomplishment of the promise made to them so long 
ago : " As the days of a tree are the days of my people, and 
mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands ; they 
shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble ; for they 
are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring 
with them." 

This lesson we have to take from the leaf's life. One more 
we may receive from its death. If ever in autumn, a pen- 
siveness falls upon us as the leaves drift by in their fading, 
may we not wisely look up in hope to their mighty monu- 
ments ? Behold how fair, how far prolonged, in arch and 
aisle, the avenues of the valleys ; the fringes of the hills ! So 
stately, — so eternal; the joy of man, the comfort of all living 
creatures, the glory of the earth, — they are but the monu- 
ments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let 
them not pass, without our understanding their last counsel 
and example : that we also, careless of monument by the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 11 

grave, may build it in the world — monument by which men 
may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where 
we lived. 



MYSTERY AND UNITY. 

This system of braided or woven ornament was not con- 
fined to the Arabs ; it is universally pleasing to the instinct 
of mankind. I believe that nearly all early ornamentation 
is full of it, — more especially, perhaps, Scandinavian and 
Anglo-Saxon ; and illuniiiiated manuscripts depend upon it 
for their loveliest effects of intricate color, up to the close ol" 
the thirteenth century. There are several very interesting 
metaphysical reasons for this strange and unfailing delight, 
felt in a thing so simple. It is not often that any idea of 
utility has power to enhance the true impressions of beauty ; 
but it is possible that the enormous importance of the art of 
weaving to mankind may give some interest, if not actual 
attractiveness, to any type or image of the invention to which 
we owe, at once, our comfort and our pride. But the more 
profound reason lies in the innate love of mystery and unity ; 
in the joy that the human mind has in contemplating any 
kind of maze or entanglement, so long as it can discern, 
through its confusion, any guiding clue or connecting plan : a 
pleasure increased and solemnized by some dim feeling of the 
setting forth, by such symbols, of the intricacy, and alternate 
rise and fall, subjection and supremacy, of human fortune ; 
the 

" Weave the warp, and weave the woof," 

of Fate and Time. 



12 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



laiPERFECTION. 



Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know 
of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, 
of a state of progress and clmnge. Nothing that lives is, or 
can be, rigidly perfect ; part of it is decaying, part nascent. 
Tlie foxglove blossom, — a tliird part bud, a third part past, a 
third part in full bloom, — is a type of tlie life of this world. 
And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and 
deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of 
beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on 
each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its sym- 
metry. All admit irregularity as they imply change ; and to 
banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exer- 
tion, to paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, love- 
lier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been 
divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, 
and the law of human judgment, Mercy. 



SUBLIMITY. 



Impressions of awe and sorrow being at the root of the 
sensation of sublimity, and the beauty of separate flowers 
not being of the kind which connects itself with such sensa- 
tion, there is a wide distinction, in general, between flower- 
loving minds and minds of the highest order. 



rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. ^3 



THE HUMBLEST OF THE EARTH-CHILDIIEX. 

Lichen, and mosses (though these last in tlieir luxuriance 
are deep and rich as herbage, yet both for the most part 
liuinblest of the green things that live), — how of these ? 
Jleek creatures ! the iirst mercy of tlie earth, veiUng with 
luished softness its dintless rocks; creatures full of pity, 
covering with strange and tender honor the scarred disgi-ace 
of rain, — laying quiet finger on the trembling stones, to teach 
them rest. No words, that I know of, will say what these 
mosses are. None are delicate enough, none perfect enough, 
none rich enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses 
of furred and beaming green, — the starred divisions of 
rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could spin 
porphyry as we do glass, — the traceries of intricate silver, 
and ffinges of amber, lustrous, arborescent, burnished through 
every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of 
silken change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for 
simplest, sweetest ofiices of grace. They will not be gath- 
ered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token ; but of these 
the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his 
pillow. 

And, as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to 
us. When all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the 
soft mosses and grey lichen take up their ^vatch by the head- 
stone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, 
have done their parts for a time, but these do service for 
ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the biide's 
chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave. 

Yet as in one sen>e the humblest, in another they are the 
most honored of the earth-children. Unfiiding, as motionless, 
the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. 
Strono- in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in 



14 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

frost. To them slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted 
the weaving of the dark, eternal, tapestries of the hills ; to 
them, slow-i^encilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their 
endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the miimpassioned 
rock, they share also its endurance ; and while the winds of 
departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like 
drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the 
drooping of its cowslip-gold, — far above, among the moun- 
tains, the silver lichen spots rest, star-like on the stone, and 
the gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western 
peak, reflects the sunsets of a thousand years. 



JUDGMENT, MEECY, A:N^D TRUTH. 

When people read, " the law came by Moses, but grace 
and truth by Christ," do they suppose that the law was 
ungracious and untrue? The law was given for a founda- 
tion; the grace (or mercy) and truth for fulfilment; — the 
whole forming one glorious Trinity of judgment, mercy, and 
truth. And if people would but read the text of their 
Bibles with heartier purpose of understanding it, instead of 
superstitiously, they would see that throughout the parts 
Avhich they are intended to make most personally their own 
(the Psalms) it is always the Law which is spoken of with 
chief joy. The Psalms respecting mercy are often sorrowful, 
as in thought of what it cost ; but those respecting the law 
are always full of delight. David cannot contain himself for 
joy in thinking of it,— he is never weary of its |>i-aise : — 
" How love I thy laAv ! it is my meditation all the day. Thy 
testimonies are my delight and my counsellers ; sweeter, also, 
than honey and the honeycomb." 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 15 



DOERS. 

Men 'in their several professed employments, looked at 
broadly, may be properly arranged under five classes : — 

1. Persons who see. These in modern language are some- 
times called sight-seers, that being an occupation coming 
more and more into vogue every day. Anciently they used 
to be called, simply, seers. 

2. Persons who talk. These, in modern language, are 
usually called talkers, or speakers, as in the House of Com- 
mons, and elsewhere. They used to be called proj^hets. 

3. Persons who make. These, in modern language, are 
usually called manufacturers. Anciently they were called 
poets. 

4. Persons who think. There seems to be no very distinct 
modern title for this kind of person, anciently called philoso- 
phers ; nevertheless we have a few of them among us. 

Of the first two classes I have only this to note, — that we 
ought neither to say that a person sees, if he sees falsely, nor 
S23eaks, if he speaks falsely. For seeing falsely is worse than 
blindness, and sj^eaking falsely, than silence. A man Avho is 
too dim-sighted to discern the road from the ditch, may feel 
which is w^hich ; — but if the ditch appears manifestly to him 
to be the road, and the road to be the ditch, what shall 
become of him ? False seeing is unseeing, — on the negative 
side of blindness ; and false speaking, unspeaking, — on the 
negative side of silence. 

To the persons who think, also, the same test applies very 
shrewdly. Theirs is a dangerous profession ; and from the 
time of the Aristophanes thought-shop to the great Gei-man 
establishment, or thought-manufactory, whose productions 
have, unliappily, taken in part the place of the older and 
more ser\ iceable commodities of Nuremberg toys and Berlin 



16 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

wool, it has been often harmful enough to mankind. It 
should not be so, for a false thought is more distinctly and 
visibly no tliought than a false saying is no saying. But it is 
touching the two great productive classes of the doers and 
makers, that we have one or two important points to note 
here. 

Has the reader ever considered, carefully, what is the 
meaning of the word "doing?" When, accidentally or 
mechanically, events take place without a purpose, we have 
indeed effects or results, and agents or causes, but neither 
deeds nor doers. 

Now it so happens, as we all well know, that by far the 
largest part of things happening in practical life are brought 
about with no deliberate purpose. There are always a num- 
ber of people who have the nature of stones ; they fall on 
other persons and crush them. Some again have the nature 
of weeds, and twist about other people's feet and entangle 
them. More have the nature of logs, and lie in the way, so 
that every one fjills over them. And most of all have the 
nature of thorns, and set themselves by waysides, so that 
every passer-by must be torn, and all good seed choked ; or 
perhaps make wonderful crackling under various pots, even 
to the extent of practically boiling water and woi-king pis- 
tons. All these people produce immense and sorrowful effect 
in the world. Yet none of them are doers : it is their nature 
to crush, impede, and prick: but deed is not in them.* 

And farther, observe, that even when some effect is fintilly 

* We may, perhaps, expediently recollect as much of our botany as to 
teach us that there may be sharp and rough persons, like spines, who yet 
have good in them, and are essentially branches, and can bud. But the 
true thorny person is no spine, only an excrescence ; rootless evermore, — 
leafless evermore. No crown made of such can ever meet glory of Angel's 
hand. (In Momoriam, Ixviii.) 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 17 

intended, you cannot call it the person's deed, unless it is 
'I c/i at h e in t en d e d . 

If an ignorant pei'son, purposing evil, accidentally does 
good (as if a tlnef's disturbing a family should lead them to 
discover in time that their house was on fire) ; or vice versd^ 
if an ignorant person intending good, accidentally does evil 
(as if a child should give hemlock to his companions for 
celery), in neither case do you call them the doers of what 
may result. So that in order to a true deed, it is necessary 
that the effect of it should be foreseen. Which, ultimately, 
it cannot be, but by a person who knows, and in his deed 
obeys, the laws of the universe, and of its Maker. And this 
knowledge is in its highest form, respecting the will of the 
Ruling Spirit, called Trust. For it is not the knowledge that 
a thing is, but that, according to the promise and nature of 
the Ruling Spiiit, a thing will, be. Also obedience in its 
highest form is not obedience to a constant and compulsory 
law, but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience to an 
issued command. 

And because in His doing always certain, and in His speak- 
ing always true. His name who leads the armies of Heaven 
is " Faithful and True," and all deeds which are done in 
alliance with those armies, be they small or great, are essen- 
tially deeds of^ faith ^ which therefore, and in this one stern, 
eternal sense, subdues nil kingdoms, and turns to flight the 
armies of the aliens, and is at once the source and substance 
of afl human deed, rightly so-called. 

What, let us nsk next, is the ruling character of the person 
who produces — the creator or maker, anciently called the 
poet ? 

We have seen what a deed is. What then is a " crea- 
tion ?" Nay, it may be replied, to " create" cannot be said 
of man's labor. 



18 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

On the contrary, it not only can be said, but is and must 
be said continually. You certainly do not talk of creating a 
watch, or creating a shoe ; nevertheless you do talk of creat- 
ing a feeling. Why is this ? 

Look back to the greatest of all creation, that of the world. 
Suppose the trees had been ever so well or so ingeniously put 
together, stem and leaf, yet if they had not been able to 
grow, would they have been well created ? Or suppose the 
fish had been cut and stitched finely out of skin and whale- 
bone; yet, cast upon the waters, had not been able to swim? 
Or suppose Adam and Eve had been made in the softest clay, 
ever so neatly, and set at the foot of the tree of knowledge, 
fastened up to it, quite unable to fall, or do anything else, 
would they have been jvell created, or in any true sense 
created at all ? 

It will, perhajDS, appear to you, after a little f^Hther 
thought, that to create anything in reality is to put life into 
it. 

A poet, or creator, is therefore a person who puts things 
together, not as a. watchmaker steel, or a shoemaker leather, 
but who puts life into them. 

His work is essentially this : it is the gathering and aiTang- 
ing of material by imagination, so as to have in it at last the 
harmony or helpfulness of life, and the passion or emotion of 
life. Mere fitting and adjustment of material is nothing; 
that is watchmaking. But helpful and passionate harmony, 
essentially choral harmony, so-called from the Greek woi'd 
"rejoicing," is the harmony of Aj^ollo and the Muses; the 
word Muse and Mother being derived from the same-root, 
meaning " passionate seeking," or love, of which the issue is 
passionate finding, or sacred invention. For which reason I 
could not bear to use any baser word than this of invention. 
And if the reader will think over all these things, and follow 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 19 

them out, as I think he may easily with this much of clue 
given him, he will not any more think it wrong in me to 
place invention so high among the powers of man, or any 
more think it strange that the " last act of the life of Socrates 
should have been to purify himself from the sin of having 
negligently listened to the voice within him, which, through 
all his past life, had bid him labor, and make harmony." 



THE HELPFUL, OR THE HOLY ONE. 

When matter is either consistent, or living, we call it pure, 
or clean; when inconsistent, or corrupting (unhelpful), we 
call it impure, or unclean. The greatest uncleanliness being 
that which is essentially most opposite to life. 

Life and consistency, then, both expressing one character 
(namely, helpfulness, of a higher or lower order), the Maker 
of all creatures and things, " by whom all creatures live, and 
all things consist," is essentially and for ever the Helpful One, 
or in softer Saxon, the " Holy" One. 

The word has no other ultimate meaning : Helpful, harm- 
less, undefiled : " living" or " Lord of Life."' 

The idea is clear and mighty in the cherubim's cry: 
" Helpful, helpful, helpful. Lord God of Hosts;" 1 e. of all 
the hosts, armies, and creaUires of the earth. 

A pure or holy state of anything, therefore, is that in 
w^hich all its parts are helpful or consistent. They may or 
may not be homogeneous. The highest or organic purities 
are composed of many elements in an entirely helpful state. 
The highest and first law of the universe — and the other name 
of life, is, therex'bre, "help." The other name of death is 
" separation." Government and co-operation are in all things 



20 PIIECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

and eternally the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, 
eternally, and in all things, the laws of death. 



ST. MAHK. 



" And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus." 
If as the shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of 
prophecy had entered into the heart of the weak disciple 
who had turned back when his hand was on the plough, and 
who had been judged, by the chiefest of Christ's captains, 
unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the work,* 
how wonderful would he have thought it, that by the lion 
symbol in future ages he was to be represented among men ! 
how woful, that the war-cry of his name should so often 
reanimate the rage of the soldier, on those very plains where 
he himself had failed in the courage of the Christian, and so 
often dye with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea, over 
whose waves, in repentance and shame, he w^as following the 
Son of Consolation ! 



THE MYSTERY OF CLEAKNESS. 

In an Italian twilight, when, sixty or eighty miles away, 
the ridge of the Western i^lps rises in its dark and serrated 
blue against the crystalline vermilion, there is still unsearch- 
ableness, but an unsearchableness without cloud or conceal- 
ment, — an infinite unknown, but no sense of any veil or inter- 

* Acts, xiii. 13 ; xv. 38, 39. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 21 

ference between us and it: we are separated from it not 
by any anger or storm, not by any vain and fading vapor, 
but only by the deep infinity of the thing itself. I- find that 
the great religious painters rejoiced in that kind of nnknow- 
ableness, and in that only ; and I feel that even if they had 
had all the power to do so, still they would not have put 
rosy mists and blue shadows behind their sacred figures, but 
only the fir-away sky and cloudless mountains. Probably 
the right conclusion is that the clear and cloudy mysteries are 
alike noble ; but that the beauty of the wreaths of frost mist, 
folded over banks of greensward deep in dew, and of the pur- 
ple clouds of evening, and the wreaths of fitful vapor gliding 
through groves of pine, and irised around the pillars of water- 
falls, is more or less typical of the kind of joy which we 
should take in the imperfect knowledge granted to the earthly 
life, while the serene and cloudless mysteries set forth that 
belono-incr to the redeemed life. 



PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE. 

Our happiness as thinking beings must depend on our 
being content to accept only partial knowledge, even in those 
matters which chiefly concern us. If we insist uj^on perfect 
intelligibility and complete declaration in every moral sub- 
ject, we shall instantly fall into misery of unbelief. Our 
wdiole happiness and power of energetic action depend upon 
our being able to breathe and live in the cloud ; content to 
see it opening here and closing there ; rejoicing to catch, 
through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and sub- 
stantial things ; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the 
concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread 



22 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the 
infinite clearness wearied. 



JUST CEITICISM. 

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticismi which 
hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant 
of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than 
of that which falls impotently on the grave. 

And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard 
Hooker : " To the best and wisest, while they live, the world 
is continually a fro ward opposite ; and a curious observer of 
their defects and imperfections, their virtues afterwards it as 
much admireth. And for this cause, many times that which 
deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find favor, if 
they which propose it were not content to profess themselves 
therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world 
will not endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been 
which went before." — Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who 
would maintain the cause of contemporary excellence against 
that of elder time, must have almost every class of men 
arrayed against him. The generous, because they would not 
find matter of accusation against established dignities ; the 
envious, because they like not the sound of a living man's 
praise ; the wise, because they prefer the opinion of centuries 
to that of days ; and the foolish, because they "are incapable 
of forming an opinion of their own. Obloquy so universal is 
not lightly to be risked, and the few who make an eifort to 
stem the torrent, as it is made commonly in favor of their 
own works, deserve the contempt which is their only 
reward. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 23 



THE XEBUCHADNEZZAE CURSE. 



Though God " hath made everything beautiful in his time, 
also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can 
find out the work that God maketh from the beo-inningj to the 
end." 

This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends us to grass like 
oxen, seems to follow but too closely on the excess or con- 
tinuance of national power and peace. In the perplexities of 
nations, in their struggles for existence, in their infancy, their 
impotence, or even their disorganization, they have higher 
hopes and nobler passions. Out of the suffering comes the 
serious mind ; out of the salvation, the grateful heart ; out of 
the endurance, the fortitude ; out of the deliverance, the faith ; 
but now when they have learned to live under providence of 
laws, and with decency and justice of regard for each other ; 
and when they have done avray with violent and external 
sources of suffering, worse evils seem arising out of their 
rest, evils that vex less and mortify more, that suck the blood 
though they do not shed it, and ossify the heart though they 
do not torture it. 



OPPRESSION OP THE POOR. 



You cannot but have noticed how often in those parts of 
the Bible ^vhich are likely to be oftenest opened when people 
look foi- guidance, comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, 
namely, the Psalms and Provei'bs, mention is made of the 
guilt attaching to the Oppression of the poor. Observe : not 
the neglect of them, but the Oppression of them ; the word 



2l PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

is as frequent as it is strange. You can hardly open eitlier 
of those books, but somewhere in their pages you will find a 
description of the wicked man's attempts against the poor, 
such as — '' He doth ravish the poor w^hen he getteth him 
into his net." 

" His mouth is full of deceit and fraud ; in the secret places 
doth he murder the innocent." 

" They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppres- 
sion." 

"Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. Ye weigh 
the violence of your hands in the earth." 

Yes : " Ye weigh the violence of your hands ;" w^eigh 
these words as well. The last things w^e usually think of 
w^eighing are Bible words. We like to dream and dis]3ute 
over them, but to w^eigh them and see what their true con- 
tents are — anything but that ! Yet weigh them ; for I have 
pur})osely taken these verses, perhaps more strikingly to you 
read in this connexion, than separately in their places out of 
the Psalms, because, for all people belonging to the Esta- 
blished Church of this country these Psalms are appointed 
lessons, portioned out to them by their clergy to be read 
once through every month. Prusuniably, therefore, whatever 
portions of Scripture we may pass by or forget, these, at all 
events, must be brought continually to our observance as use- 
ful for direction of daily life. Now, do we ever ask ourselves 
what the real meaning of these passages may be, and w^ho 
these wicked people are, who are " murdering the innocent ?" 
You know it is rather singular language this ! — rather strong 
language, we might, perhaps, call it — hearing it for the first 
time. Murder ! and murder of innocent people ! — nay, even 
a sort of cannibalism. Eating people, — yes, and God's peo- 
ple, too — eating My people as if they were bread I swords 
drawn, bows bent, poison of serpents mixed ! violence of 



rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 25 

hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with as so much 
coin ! where is all this going on ? Do you suppose it w^as 
only going on in the time of David, and that nobody but Jews 
ever murder the poor ? If so, it w^ould surely be wiser not 
to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not 
concern us ; but if there be any chance that it may concern 
us, and if this description, in the Psalms, of human guilt is at 
all generally applicable, as the descriptions* in the Psalms of 
human sorrow are, may it not be advisable to know wherein 
this guilt is being committed round about us, or by ourselves? 
and when we take the words of the Bible into our mouths in 
a congregational way, to be sure whether we mean sincerely 
to chant a piece of melodious poetry relating to other people 
(we know not exactly whom)— or to assert our belief in facts 
bearing somewhat astringently on ourselves and om' daily 
business. And if you make up your minds to do this no 
longer, and take pains to examine into the matter, you will 
find that these strange words, occurring as they do, not in a 
few places only,' but almost in every alternate psalm, and 
every alternate chapter of Proverbs or prophecy, wath tre- 
mendous reiteration, were not written for one nation or one 
time only, but for all nations and languages, for all places and 
all centm-ies ; and it is as true of the wicked man now as 
ever it was of Nabal or pives, that " his eyes are set against 
the poor." 



WHO ARE THE POOR ? 

May we not advisedly look into this matter a little, and 
ask, Who are the poor ? 

No country is, or ever will be, without them : that is to 

2 



26 TEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

say, witliont the class which cannot, on the average, do more 
by its labour than provide for its subsistence, and wliich has 
no accumulations of property laid by on any considerable 
scale. Now there are a certain number of this class whom 
we cannot oppress with much severity. An able-bodied and 
intelligent workman — sober, honest, and. industrious, will 
almost always command a fair price for his work, and lay by 
enough in a few years to enable him to hold his own in the 
labour market. But all men are not able-bodied, nor intelli- 
gent, nor industrious ; and you cannot expect them to be. 
Nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous and more 
melancholy than the way the people of the present age usu- 
ally talk about the morals of labourers. You hardly ever 
address a labouring man upon his prospects in life, without 
quietly assuming that he is to possess, at starting, "as a small 
moi'al capital to begin with, the virtue of Socrates, the philo- 
sophy of Plato, and the heroism of Epaminondas. " Be 
assured, my good man," — you say to him, — " that if you 
work steadily for ten hours a day all your life long, and if 
you drink nothing but water, or the very mildest beer, and 
live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go 
to church every Sunday, and always remain content in the 
position in which Providence has placed you, and never 
grumble, nor swear, and always keep your clothes decent, 
and rise early, and use every opportunity of impi'oving your- 
self, you will get on very well, and never come to the parish." 
All this is exceedingly true ; but before giving the advice 
so confidently, it would be well if we sometimes tried it prac- 
tically ourselves, and spent a year or so at some hard manual 
labour, not of an entertaining kind — [iloughing or digging, 
for instance, with a very moderate allow^ance of beer ; nothing 
but bread and cheese for dinner ; no papers nor muffins in 
the morning ; no sofas nor magazines at night ; one small 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 27 

room for parlour mid kitchen ; and a large family of children 
always in the middle of the floor. If we think we could) 
under these circumstances, enact Socrates or Epaminondas 
entirely to our own satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justi- 
fied in requiiing the same behaviour from our poorer neigh- 
bours ; but if not, we should surely consider whether among 
the various forms of oppression of the poor, we may not rank 
as one of the first and likeliest — the oppression of expecting 
too much from them. 

But there will always be some in the TVX)rld who are not 
altogether intelligent and exemplary, and occasionally di'unk 
on Saturday night, and who like sleep on Sunday morning 
better than prayers, and of unnatural parents who send their 
children out to beg instead of to go to school. 

Now thiese are the kind of people whom you can oppress, 
and whom you do oppress, and that to purpose, — and with 
all the more cruelty and the greater sting, because it is just 
their own fault that puts them into your power. You know 
the words about wicked people are, " He doth ravish the 
poor wlien he getteth him into his netP This getting into 
the net is constantly the fault or folly of the suiferer — his 
own heedlessness or his own indolence ; but after he is once 
in the net, the oppression of him, and making the most of his 
distress, are ours. The nets which we use against the poor 
are just those worldly embarrassments which either their 
ignorance or their improvidence are almost certain at some 
time or other to bring them into : then, just at the time when 
we ought to hasten to help them, and disentangle them, and 
teach them how to mnnage better in future, we rush forward 
to pillage them, and force all we can out of them in their 
adversity. For, to take one instance only, remember this is 
literally and simply what we do, whenever we buy, or try to 
buy, cheap goods — goods offered at a jDrice which we know 



28 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

cannot be remunerative for the labour involved in them. 
Whenever we buy such goods, remember we are stealing 
somebody's labour. Don't let us mince the matter. I say, 
in plain Saxon, stealing — taking from him the proper reward 
of his work, and putting it into our own pocket. You know 
well enough that the thing could not have been offered you 
at that price, unless distress of some kind had forced the pro- 
ducer to part with it. You take advantage of this distress, 
and you force as much out of him as you can under the cir- 
cumstances. The old barons of the middle ages used, in 
general, the thumb-screw to extort property; we moderns 
hunger, or domestic affliction, but the fact of extortion remains 
precisely the same. Whether we force the man's property 
by pincliing his stomach or pinching his fingers, makes some 
difference anatomically; morally, none w^hatever. We use 
a form of torture of some sort in order to make him give up 
his property. 



MERCANTILE PANICS. 

No merchant deserving the name ought to be more liable 
to a " panic " than a soldier should ; for his name should 
never be on more paper than he could at any instant meet 
the call of, happen what will. I do not say this without feel- 
ing at the same time how difficult it is to mark, in existing 
commerce, the just limits between the spirit of enterj^rise and 
of speculation. Something of the same temper which makes 
the English soldier do always all that is possible, and attempt 
more than is possible, joins its influence with that of mere 
avarice in temj)ting the English merchant into risks which he 
cannot justify, and efforts which he cannot sustain ; and the 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 29 

same passion for adventure which our travellers gratify every 
summer on perilous snow wreaths, and cloud-encompassed 
precipices, surrounds with a romantic fascination the glitter- 
ing of a hollow investment, and gilds the clouds that curl 
round gulfs of ruin. Nay, a higher and a more serious feel- 
ing frequently mingles in the motley temptation ; and men 
apply themselves to the task of growing rich, as to a labour 
of providential appointment, from which they cannot pause 
without culpability, nor retire without dishonour. Our large 
trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic 
establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the 
crane takes the place of other devotional music : and in which 
the worship of Mammon and Moloch is conducted with a 
tender reverence and an exact propriety : the merchant rising 
to his Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, 
and expiating the frivolities into which he may be beguiled 
in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon ves- 
pers. But, with every allowance that can be made for these 
conscientious and romantic persons, the fact remains the 
same, that by far the greater number of the transactions 
which lead to these times of commercial embarrassment may 
be ranged simply under two great heads, — gambling and 
stealing ; and both of these in their most culpable form, 
namely, gambling with money which is not ours, and steal- 
ing from those who trust us. I have sometimes thought a 
day might come, when the nation would perceive that a well- 
educated man who steals a hundred thousand pounds, involv- 
ing the entire means of subsistence of a hundred fomilies, 
deserves, on the whole, as severe a punishment as an ill-edu- 
cated man who steals a purse from a pocket, or a mug from 
a i^antry. 



30 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



DIVINE LAWS. 



I am very sure that no reader who has given any attention 
to the tendency of what I have written, will suppose me 
to underrate the importance, or dispute the authority, of law. 
It has been necessary for me to allege these again and again, 
nor can they ever be too often or too energetically alleged, 
against the vast masses of men who now disturb or retard 
the advance of civilisation ; heady and high-minded, despisers 
of discipline, and refusers of correction. But law, so fjir as it 
can be reduced to form and system, and is not written upon 
the heart, — as it is, in a Divine loyalty, upon the hearts of 
the great hierarchies who serve and wait about the throne of 
the Eternal Lawgiver, — this lower and formally expressible 
law has, I say, two objects. It is either for the definition 
and restraint of sin, or the guidance of simplicity ; it either 
explains, forbids, and punishes wickedness, or it guides the 
movements and actions both of lifeless things and of the more 
simple and untaught among responsible agents. And so long, 
therefore, as sin and foolishness are in the world, so long it 
will be necessary for men to submit themselves painfully to 
this lower law, in proportion to their need of being corrected, 
and to the degree of childishness or simplicity by which they- 
approach more nearly to the condition of the unthinking and 
inanimate things which are governed by law altogether ; yet 
yielding, in the manner of their submission to it, a singular 
lesson to the pride of man, — being obedient more perfectly 
in proportion to their greatness. But, so far as men become 
good and wise, and rise above the state of children, so far 
they become emancipated from this written law, and invested 
with the perfect freedom which consists in the fulness and 
joy fulness of compliance with a higher and unwritten law ; 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. ^1 

a law so universal, so subtle, so glorious, that nothing but 
the heart can keep it. 

Now pride opposes itself to the observance of this Divme 
law in two opposite ways : either by brute resistance, which 
is the way of the rabble and its leaders, denying or defymg 
law altogether, or by formal comphance, which is the way of 
the Pharisee,— exalting himself while he pretends to obe- 
dience, and making void the infinite and spiritual command- 
ment by the finite and lettered commandment. And it is 
easy to know which law we are obeying : for any law which 
we mao-nify and keep through pride, is always the law of the 
letter Tbut tlmt which we love and keep through humility, 
is the kw of the Spirit. And the letter kiUeth, but the Spirit 
giveth life. 



THE CHURCH. 



The Church is a body to be taught and fed, not to teach 
and feed : and of all sheep that are fed on the earth, Christ's 
Sheep are the most simple (the children of this generation 
are wiser) : always losing themselves ; doing little else in this 
world hut lose themselves ;— never finding themselves ; always 
found by Some One else ; getting perpetually into sloughs, 
and snows, and bramble thickets, hke to die there, but for 
their Shepherd, who is for ever finding them and bearing 
them back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear. 



82 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



CLERGYMEX. 



As to the mode in which the officers of the Church should 
be elected or apj^ointed, I do not feel it my business to say 
anything at present, nor much respecting the extent of their 
authority, either over each other or over the congregation, 
this being a most difficult question, the right solution of 
which evidently lies between two most dangerous extremes 
— :insubordination and radicalism on one hand, and ecclesias- 
tical tyranny and heresy on the other : of the two, insubor- 
dination is far the least to be dreaded — for this reason, that 
nearly all real Christians are more on the watch against their 
pride than their indolence, and would sooner obey their 
clergyman, if possible, than contend wnth him; while the 
very pride they suppose conquered often returns masked, and 
causes them to make a merit of their humility and their 
abstract obedience, however imreasonable : but they cannot 
so easily persuade themselves there is a merit in abstract 
disobedience. 



THE KI:n^g's 31ESSENGERS. 

\ 
The word ambassador has a peculiar ambiguity about it, 
owing to its use in modern political affairs ; and these clergy- 
men assume that the w^ord, as used by St. Paul, means an 
Ambassador Plenipotentiary; representative of his King, 
and capable of acting for his King. What right have they 
to assume that St. Paul meant this ? St. Paul never uses the 
word ambassador at all. He «ays, simply, " We are in embas- 
sage from Christ ;. and Christ beseeches you through us." 



rUECIOUS TOOtJGHTS. 33 

Most true. And let it further be granted, that every word 
that the clergyman speaks is literally dictated to him by 
Christ ; that he can make no mistake in delivering his mes- 
sage ; and that, therefore, it is indeed Christ himself who 
speaks to us the word of life through the messenger's lips. 
Does, therefore, the messenger represent Christ ? Does the 
channel which conveys the waters of the Fountain represent 
the Fountain itself ? Suppose, when we went to draw water 
at a cistern, that all at once the Leaden Spout should become 
animated, and open its mouth and say to us. See, I am Vica- 
rious for the Fountain. Whatever respect you show to the 
Fountain, show some part of it to me. Should we not 
answer the Spout, and say. Spout, you were set there for our 
service, and may be taken away and thrown aside if anything 
goes wrong with you. But the Fountain will flow for ever. 

Observe, I do not deny a most solemn authority vested in 
every Christian messenger from God to men. I am prepared 
to grant this to the uttermost ; and all that George Herbert 
says, in the end of the Church-porch, I would enforce, at 
another time than this, to the uttermost. But the Authority 
is simply that of a King's 'messenger / not of a King's Mepre- 
sentative. There is a wide difference ; all the difference 
between humble service and blasphemous usurpation. 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE BIBLE. 

You are not philosophers of the kind who suppose that the 
Bible is a superannuated book ; neither are you of those who 
think the Bible is dishonoured by being referred to for judg- 
ment in small matters. The very divinity of the Book seems 
to me, on the contrary, to justify us in referring every thing 

2* 



34 Pr.EClOUS THOUGHTS. 

to it, with respect to which any conclusion can be gathered 
from its pages. Assuming then that the Bible is neither 
superannuated now, nor ever likely to be so, it will follow 
tliat the illustrations which the Bible employs are likely to be 
clear and intelligible illustrations to the end of time. I do 
not mean that everything spoken of in the Bible histories 
must continue to endure for all time, but that the things 
which the Bible uses for illustration of eternal truths are 
likely to remain eternally intelligible illustrations. 



THE DISSECTORS AND THE DUEAMERS. 

All experience goes to teach us, that among men of ave- 
rage intellect the most useful members of society are the 
dissectors, not the dreamers. It is not that they lov-e nature 
or beauty less, but that they love result, effect, and progress 
more ; and when we glance broadly along the starry crowd 
of benefactors to the human race, and guides of human 
thought, we shall find that this dreaming love of natural 
beauty — or at least its expression — has been more or less 
checked by them all, and subordinated either to hard work 
or watchino: of human nature. 



ASSOCIATIONS OF BEAUTY. 



Beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the 
elements by which the human soul is continually sustained ; 
it is therefore to be found more or less in all natural objects, 
but in order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and 



PRECIOUS TUOUGHTS. 35 

weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its utmost degrees. 
When we see it in those utmost degrees, we are attracted to 
it strongly, and remember it long, as in the case of singularly 
beautiful scenery, or a beautiful countenance. On the other 
hand, absolute ugliness* is admitted as rarely as perfect 
beauty ; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated 
with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty 
is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life. 



RESPECTABILITY OF ARTISTS. 

I believe that there is no chance of art's truly flourishing 
in any country, until you make it a simple and plain business, 
providing its masters with an easy competence, but rarely 
with anything more. And I say this, not because I despise 
the great painter, but because I honour him ; and I should no 
more think of adding to his respectability or happiness by 
giving him riches, than, if Shakspeare or Milton were alive, 
I should think we added to their respectability, or were 
likely' to get better work from them, by making them mil- 
lionaires. 



OPINIONS. 

In many matters of opinion, our first and last coincide, 
though on different grounds ; it is tlie middle stage which is 
farthest from the truth. Ciiildhood often holds a truth with 
its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, 
— which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. 



36 PKECIOUS THOLGUTS. 



THE NECESSITY OP WORK. 



By far the greater part of the suffering and crime which 
exist at this moment in civilized Europe, arises simply from'* 
people not understanding this truism — not knowing that pro- 
duce or wealth is eternally connected by the laws of heaven 
and earth with resolute labour; but hoping in some way to 
cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed 
where they have not furrowed, and be Avarm where they have 
not woven. 

I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result from this 
one misapprehension. The law of nature is, that a certain 
quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain quantity 
of good, of any kind whatev^er. If you waiit knowledge, you 
must toil for it: if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, 
you must toil for it. ]3ut men do not acknowledge this law, 
or strive to evade it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, 
and pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they either fail of 
getting them, and remain ignorant and miserable, or they 
obtain them by making other men work for their benefit ; and 
then they are tyrants and robbers. Yes, and worse than rob- 
bers. I am not one who in the least doubts or disputes the 
progress of this century in many things useful to mankind ; 
but it seems tome a very dark sign respecting us that we look 
with so much indifference upon dishonesty and cruelty in the 
pursuit of wealth. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar it was 
only the feet that were part of iron and part of clay ; but 
many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that it 
seems as if, in us, the heart were part of iron, and part of 
clay. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3? 



WAR. 

Wherever there is war, there must be iDJustice on one side 
^r the other, or on both. There have been wars which were 
little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, 
and in wliieh the injustice was not to each other, but to the 
God who gave them life. But in a malignant war of these pre- 
sent ages there is injustice of ignobler kind, at once to God 
and man, which must be stemmed for both their sakes. It 
may, indeed, be so involved vrith national prejudices, or igno- 
rances, that neither of the contending nations can conceive it 
as attaching to their cause; nay, the constitution of their 
governments, and the clumsy crookedness of their 23olitical 
dealings wdth each other, may be such as to prevent either of 
them from knowing the actual cause for which they have 
gone to war. 

For the cause of this quarrel is no dim, half-avoidable invo- 
lution of mean interests and errors, as some would have us 
believe. There never was a great war caused by such things. 
There never can be. The historian may trace it, with ingeni- 
ous trifling, to a courtier's jest or a woman's glance ; but he 
does not ask — (and it is the sum of questions) — how the war- 
ring nations had come to found their destinies on the course 
of the sneer, or the smile. If they have so based them, it is 
time for them to learn, through suffering, how to build on 
other foundations ; — for great, accumulated, and most right- 
eous cause, their foot shdes in due time; and against the tor- 
por, or the turpitude, of their myriads, there is loosed the 
haste of the devouring sword and the thirsty arrow. 

But it is not altogether thus : we have not been cast into 
this war by mere political misapprehensions, or popular igno- 
rances. It is quite possible that neither we nor our rulers 
may clearly understand the nature of the conflict ; and that 



38 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

we may be dealing blows in the dark, confusedly, and as a 
soldier suddenly awakened from slumber by an unknown 
adversary. But I believe the struggle was inevitable, and 
that the sooner it came, the more easily it was to be met. and#- 
the more nobly concluded. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF V7AE. 

I believe that war is at present productive of good more 
than of evil. I will not ai'gue this hardly and coldly, as I 
might, by tracing in past history some of the abundant evi- 
dence that nations have always reached their highest virtue, 
and wrought theii* most accomplished works, in times of 
straitening and battle ; as, on the other hand, no nation ever 
yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without receiv- 
ing in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline. I 
will not so argue this mattei* ; but I will appeal at once to 
the testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I 
know vvhat would be told me, by those who have suffered 
nothing ; whose domestic happiness has been unbroken, whose 
daily comfort undisturbed ; whose experience of calamity con- 
sists, at its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the 
dearness of a luxury, or the incrense of demands upon their 
fortune which they could meet fourfold without inconveni- 
ence. 

They are bound by new fidelities to all that they have 
saved, — by new love to all for whom they have suffered; 
every affection which seemed to sink with those dim life-stains 
into the dust, has been delegated, by those who need it no 
more, to the cause for which they have expired ; and every 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 39 

mouldering arm, which will never more embrace the beloved 

ones, has bequeathed to them its strength and its faithful- 
ness. 



MEN OF GROSS MINDS. 

During the last age lived certain men of high intellect 
who had no love of nature whatever. They do not appear 
ever to have received the smallest sensation of ocular delight 
from any natural scene, but would have lived happily all 
their lives in drawing-rooms or studies. And, therefore, in 
these men we shall be able to determine, with the greatest 
chance of accuracy, what the real influence of natural beauty 
is, and what the character of a mind destitute of its love. 
Take, as conspicuous instances, Le Sage and Smollett, and you 
will find, in meditating over their works, that they are utter- 
ly incapable of conceiving a human soul as endowed with any 
nobleness whatever ; their heroes are simply beasts endowed 
with some degree of human iatellect; — cunning, false, pas- 
sionate, reckless, ungrateful, and abominable, incapable of 
noble joy, of noble sorrow, of any spiritual perception or 
hope. I said, "beasts with human intellect;" but neither Gil 
Bias nor Roderick Random reach, morally, anything near the 
level of doffs. 



PEDi:STEIANS. 



To any person who has all hiy senses about him, a quiet 
walk along n »t more than ten or twelve mikjs of road a day, 



40 TRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling 
becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going by 
railroad I do not consider as travelling at all ; it is merely 
" being sent" to a place, and very little different from becom- 
ing a parcel ; tlie next step to it would of course be tele- 
graphic transport, of which, however, I suppose it has been 
truly said by Octave Feuillet, 

"/(? y aurait des gens assez hetes pour trouver 9a amusant." 



WEALTH. 

Wealth is simply one of the greatest powers w^hich can be 
entrusted to human hands : a power, not indeed to be envied, 
because it seldom makes us happy ; but still less to be abdi- 
cated or despised : while, in these days, and in this country, 
it has become a power all the more notable, in that the pos- 
sessions of a rich man are not represented, as they used to 
be, by wedges of gold or coffers of jewels, but by masses of 
men variously employed, over whose bodies and minds the 
wealth, according to its direction, exercises harmful or help- 
ful influence, and becomes, in that alternative, Mammon 
either of Unrighteousness or of Righteousness. 



LABOR IN LITTLE THINGS. 



We have no right at once to pronounce ourselves the wisest 
people because we like to do all things in the best way. 
There are many little things which to do admirably is to 



PRECIOUS TnOUGTlTS. 41 

waste both time and cost; and tlie real question is not so 
much whether we have done a given thing as well as j^ossi- 
ble, as whether we have turned a given quantity of labour to 
the best account. 



THE MEMORY OF UNKIXDNESS. 

He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back 
upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feel- 
ing how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, 
to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone 
in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of 
unkiudness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the 
heart, which can only be discharged to the dust. 



DAEK SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 

Indeed it is woeful, when the young usurj) the place, or 
despise the wisdom, of the aged ; and among the many dark 
signs of these times, the disobedience and insolence of youth 
are among the darkest. But with whom is the fault ? Youth 
never yet lost its modesty where ago had not lost its honour ; 
nor did childhood ever refuse its reverence, except where age 
had forgotten correction. The cry, "Go up thou bald head," 
will never be heard in the land which remembers the precept, 
"See that ye despise not one of these little ones;" and 
although indee-d youth may become despicable, when its 
eager hope is changed into presumption, and its progressive 
power into arrested pride, there is something more despica- 



42 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ble still, in the ol 1 age which has learned neither judgment 
nor gentleness, which is weak without charity, and cold with- 
out discretion. 



VULGAK REACTIONS. 

If you will not amuse, nor inform, nor help anybody ; you 
will not amuse, nor better, nor inform yourselves; you will 
sink into a state in which you can neither show, nor feel, nor 
see, anything, but that one is to two as three is to six. And 
in that state what should we call ourselves ? Men ? I think 
not. The right name for us would be — numerators and 
denominators. Yulgar Fractions. 

May we not accept this great principle — that, as our bodies, 
to be in health, must be generally exercised, so our minds, to 
be in health, must be generally cultivated ? You would not 
call a man healthy who had strong arms but was paralytic in 
his feet ; nor one who could walk well, but had no use of his 
hands ; nor one who could see well, if he could not hear. 
You would not voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such 
partially developed state. Much more, then, you would not, 
if you could help it, reduce your minds to it. Now, your 
minds are endowed with a vast number of gifts of totally 
diflerent uses — limbs of mind as it were, which, if you don't 
exercise, you cripple. One is curiosity ; that is a gift, a capa- 
city of pleasure in knowing ; which if you destroy, you 
make yourselves cold and dull. Another is sympathy ; the 
power of sharing in the feehngs of living creatures, whicli if 
you destroy, you make yourselves hard and cruel. Another 
of your limbs of mind is admiration ; the power of enjoying 
beauty or ingenuity, \vhich, if you destroy, you make your- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 43 

selves base and irreverent. Another is wit ; or the power of 
playing with the lights on the many sides of truth ; which if 
you destroy, you make yourselves gloomy, and less useful and 
cheering to others than you might be. So that in choosing 
your way of work it should be your aim, as far "as possible, 
to bring out all these faculties, as far as they exist in you ; 
not one merely, nor another, but all of them. And the way 
to bring them out, is simply to concern yourselves attentively 
with the subjects of each faculty. To cultivate sympathy 
you must be among living creatures, and thinking about 
them ; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beau- 
tiful things and looking at them. 



;>y LOVE OF Is^ATUEE. 

Though the absence of the love of nature is not an assured 
condemnation, its presence is an invariable sign of goodness 
of heart and justness of moral perception^ though by no 
means of WiOXdX. practice y that in proportion to the degree in 
which it is felt, will prohahly be the degree in which all 
nobleness and beauty of character will also be felt; that when 
it is originally absent from any mind, that mind is in many 
otiier respects hard, worldly, and degraded ; that where, hav- 
ing been originally present, it is repressed by art or educa- 
tion, that repression appears to have been detrimental to the 
person suffering it ; and that wherever the feeling exists, it 
acts for good on the character to which it belongs, though, as 
it may often belong to characters weak in other respects, it 
may carelessly be mistaken for a source of evil in them. 



44 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



MODEEX EDUCATION. 



What do you suppose was the substance of good educa- 
tion, the education of a knight, in the Middle Ages ? What 
was taught to a boy as soon as he was able to learn anything ? 
First, to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection 
and perfect strength ; then to take Christ for his captain, to 
live as always in his presence and, finally, to do his devoir — 
mark the word — to all men ? Now, consider first, the differ- 
ence in their influence over the armies of France, between 
the ancient word " devoir," and modern word " gloire." 
And, again, ask yourselves what you expect your own chil- 
dren to be taught at your great schools and universities. Is 
it Christian history, or the histories of Pan and Silenus? 
Your present education, to all intents and purposes, denies 
Christ, and that is intensely and peculiarly modernism. 

Or, again, what do you suppose was the proclaimed and 
understood principle of all Christian governments in the mid- 
dle ages ? I do not say it was a principle acted up to, or 
that the cunning and violence of wicked men had not too 
often their full sway then, as now ; but on what principles 
were that cunning and violence, so far as was possible, 
restrained? By the confessed fear of God, and confessed 
authority of his law. You will find that all treaties, laws, 
transactions whatsoever, in the middle ages, are based on a 
confession of Christianity as the leading rule of life ; that a 
text of Scripture is held, in all public assemblies, strong- 
enough to be set against an appearance of expediency ; and 
although, in the end, the expediency might triumph, yet it 
was never without a distinct allowance of Christian principle, 
as an efiicient element in the consultation. Whatever error 
might be committed, at least Christ was openly confessed. 
Now what is the custom of your British Parliament in these 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 45 

days ? You know that nothing would excite greater mani- 
festations of contemjDt and disgust than the slightest attempt 
to introduce the authority of Scripture in a political consul- 
tation. That is denying Christ. It is intensely and peculiarly 
modernism. 



WANT OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 

Half the evil in this world comes from people not knowing 
what they do like, not deliberately setting themselves to find 
out what they really enjoy. All people enjoy giving away 
money, for instance: they don't know that^ — they rather 
think they like keeping it ; and they f^o keep it under this 
Mse impression, often to their great discomfort. Every 
body likes to do good ; but not one in a hundred finds tliis 
out. 



-o — 



THE RESPONSIBTLTTY OF A RICH MAN. 

A rich man ought to be continually examining how he may 
spend his money for the advantage of others ; at present, 
othei's are continually plotting how they may beguile him 
into spending it apparently for his own. The aspect which 
he presents to the eyes of the world is generally that of a 
person holding a bag of money with a staunch grasp, and 
resolved to part with none of it unless he is forced, and all 
the people about him are plotting how they may force him ; 
that is to say, how they may persuade him that he wants this 
thing or that ; or how they may produce things that he will 



46 ruEcious thoughts. 

covet and buy. One man tries to persuade him that he wants 
perfumes ; another that he wants jewellery ; another that he 
wants sugarplums ; another that he wants roses at Christmas. 
Anybody who can invent a new want for him is supposed to 
be a benefactor to society ; and thus the energies of the 
poorer people about him are continually directed to the pro- 
duction of covetable, instead of serviceable things ; and the 
rich man has the general aspect of a fool, plotted against by 
all the world. Whereas the real aspect which he ought to 
have is that of a person wiser than others, entrusted with the 
management of a larger quantity of cnpital, which he admi- 
nisters for the profit of all, directing each man to the labour 
w^hich is most healthy for him, and most serviceable for the 
community. 



THE AVANTS OF MODERN AKT. 

We don't want either the life or the decorations of the 
thirteenth century back again ; and the circumstances with 
Avhich you must surround your workmen are those simply of 
happy modern English life, because the designs you have now 
to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern 
English life beautiful. All that gorgeousness of the middle 
ages, beautiful as it sounds in description, noble as in many 
respects it was in reality, had, nevertheless, for foundation 
and for end, nothing but the pride of life — the pride of the 
so-called superior classes ; a pride which supported itself by 
violence and robbery, aud led in the end to the destruction 
both of the arts themselves and the States in which they 
flourished. 

The great lesson of history is, that all the fine arts hitherto 



l^REC^OUS THOUGHTS. 47 

— having been supported by the selfish power of the noblesse, 
and never having extended their range to the comfort or the 
relief of the mass of the people — the arts, I say, thus prac- 
tised, and thus matured, have only accelerated the ruin of the 
States they adorned ; and at the moment when, in any king- 
dom, you point to the triumphs of its greatest artists, you 
pomt also to the determined hour of the kingdom's decline. 
The names of great painters are like passing bells ; in the 
name of Velasquez, you hear sounded the fall of Spain ; in 
the name of Titian, that of Venice ; in the name of Leo- 
nardo, that of Milan; in the name of Kaphael, that of Rome. 
And there is profound justice in this; for in proportion to 
the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes 
vain or vile ; and hitherto the greater the art, the more 
surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of 
pride, or the provoking of sensuality. Another course lies 
open to us. We may abandon the hope — or if you like the 
words better — we may disdain the temptation, of the pomp 
and grace of Italy in her youth. For us there can be no 
more the throne of marble — for us no more the vault of gold 
— but for us there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of 
l)ringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the 
humble and the poor ; and as the magnificence of past ages 
failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and 
continue, by its universality and its lowliness. 

We want now, no more feasts of the gods, nor martyr- 
doms of the saints ; we have no need of sensuaUty, no place 
for superstition, or for costly insolence. Let us have learned' 
and faithful histoi-ical paintings ; touching and thoughtful 
re])resentations of human nature in dramatic paintings; 
poetical and familiar renderings of natural objects, and of 
landscape ; and rational, deeply-felt realizations of the events 
which are the subjects of our religious fxith. And let these 



48 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

tilings we want, as far as possible, be scattered abroad, and 
made accessible to all men. 



MANUAL LABOUR. 

How wide the separation is between original and second- 
hand execution, I shall endeavour to show elsewhere ; it is 
not so much to our purpose here as to mark the other and 
more fatal error of despising manual labour when governed 
by intellect ; for it is no less fatal an error to despise it when 
thus regulated by intellect, than to value it for its own sake. 
We are always in these days endeavouring to separate the 
two ; we want one man to be always thinking, and another 
to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the 
other an operative ; whereas the workman ought often to be 
thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both 
should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make 
both ungentle, tbe one envying, the other despising, his bro- 
ther ; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers, 
and miserable workers, l^ow it is only by labour that 
thouglit can be made healthy, and only by thought that 
labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated 
with impunity. It would be well if all of us were good 
handicraftsmen in some kind, and the dishonour of manual 
labour done away with altogether ; so that though there 
should still be a trenchant distinction of race between nobles 
and commoners, there should not, among the latter, be a 
trenchant distinction of employment, as between idle and 
working men, or between men of liberal and illiberal profes- 
sions. All professions should be liberal, smd there should 
be less pride Mt in peculiarity of employment, and more in 



rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 49 

excellence of achievement. And yet more, in eacli several 
profession,' no master should be too proud to do its hardest 
work. The painter should grind his own colours ; the archi- 
tect work in the mason's yard with his men ; the master- 
manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than any 
man in his mills ; and the distinction between one man and 
another be only in experience and skill, and the authority 
and wealth which these must naturally and justly obtain. 



PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 

In literary and scientific teaching, the great point of eco- 
nomy is to give the discipline of it through knowledge which 
will immediately bear on practical life. Our literary work 
has long been economically useless to us because too much 
concerned with dead languages; and our scientific work vrill 
yet, for some time, be a good deal lost, because scientific men 
are too fond or too vain of their systems, and waste the stu- 
dent's time in endeavouring to give him Inrge views, and 
make him perceive interesting connections of facts ; when 
there is not one student, no, nor one man, in a thousand, who 
can feel the beauty of a system, or even take it clearly into 
his head ; but nearly all men can undei-stand, and most will 
be interested in, the facts which bear on daily life. Botanists 
have discovered some wonderful connection between nettles 
and figs, which a cowboy who will never see a ripe fig in his 
life need not be at all troubled about ; but it will be intcM-est- 
ing to him to know what effect nettles have on hay, and what 
taste they will give to porridge; and it will give him neai'ly 
a new life if he can be got but once, in a spring-time, to look 
well at the beautiful circlet of the white nettle blossom, and 

3 



50 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

work out with his schoolmaster the curves of its petals, and 
the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of 
cliemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to a 
peasant boy, and even to most sons of gentlemen, than their 
knowing how to find whether the water is wholesome in the 
back-kitchen cistern, or whether the seven-acre field wants 
sand or chalk. 



BASE CRITICISM. 

It may perhaps be said that I attach too much importance 
to the evil of base criticism ; but those who think so have 
never rightly understood its scope, nor the reach of that 
stern saying of Johnson's (Idler, No. 3, April 29, 1758) : 
" Little does he (Avho assumes the character of a critic) think 
how many harmless men he involves in his own guilt, by 
teaching them to be noxious without malignity, and to repeat 
objections which they do not understand." And truly, not 
in this kind only, but in all things whatsoever, there is not, 
to my mind, a more woful or wonderful matter of thought 
than the power of a fool. In the world's aifaii'S there is no 
design so great or good but it will take twenty wise men to 
help it forward a few inches, and a single fool can stop it ; 
there is no evil so great or so terrible but that, after a multi- 
tude of counsellors have taken means to avert it, a single 
fool will bring it down. Pestilence, famine, and the sword, 
are given into the fool's hand as the arrows into the hand of 
the giant : and if he were fairly set forth in the right motley, 
the web of it should be sackcloth and sable ; the bells on his 
cap, passing bells ; his badge, a bear robbed of her whelps ; 
and his bauble, a sexton's spade. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 51 



PUBLIC FAYOUE. 



There is great difficulty in making any short or general 
statement of the difference between great and ignoble minds 
in their behaviom^ to the " public." It is by no means uni- 
versally the case that a mean mind, as stated in the text, will 
bend itself to what you ask of it ; on the contrary, there is 
one kind of mind, the meanest of all, which perpetually 
complains of the public, contemplates and proclaims itself as 
a " genius," refuses all wholesome discipline or humble office, 
and ends in miserable and revengeful ruin ; also, the greatest 
minds are marked by nothing more distinctly than an incon- 
ceivable humility, and acceptance of work or instruction in 
any form, and from any quarter. They will learn from every- 
body, and do anything that anybody asks of them, so long as 
it involves only toil, or what other men would think degra- 
dation. But the point of quarrel, nevertheless, assuredly 
rises some day between the public and them, respecting some 
matter, not of humiliation, but of Fact. Your great man 
always at last comes to see something the public don't see. 
This something he will assuredly persist in asserting, whether 
with tongue or pencil, to be as he sees it, not as they see it ; 
and all the world in a heap on the other side, will not get him 
to say otherwise. Then, if the world objects to the saying, 
he may happen to get stoned or burnt for it, but that does 
not in the least matter to him ; if the world has no particular 
objection to the saying, he may get leave to mutter it to him- 
self till he dies, and be merely taken for an idiot ; that also 
does not matter to him — mutter it he will, according to what 
he perceives to be fact, and not at all according to the roar- 
ing of the walls of Red sea on the right hand or left of him. 
Hence the quarrel, sure at some time or other, to be started 
between the public and him ; while your mean man, though 



52 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

he will spit and scratch spiritedly at the public, while it does 
not attend to him, will bow to it for its clap in any direction, 
and say anything when he has got its ear, which he thinks 
will bring him another clap ; and thus, as stated in the text, 
he and it go on smoothly together. 

There are, however, times when the obstinacy of the mean 
man looks very like the obstinacy of the great one ; but if 
you look closely into the matter, you will always see that the 
obstinacy of the first is in the pronunciation of " I ;" and of 
the second, in the pronunciation of " It." 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

A nation's labour, well api^lied, should be amply sufficient 
to provide its whole population with good food and comfort- 
able habitation ; and not with those only, but with good 
education besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such 
as these you have around you now. But by those same laws 
of Nature and Providence, if the labour of the nation or of 
the individual be misapplied, and much more if it be insuffi- 
cient, — if the nation or man be indolent and unv>'ise, — suffi^r- 
ing and want result, exactly in proportion to the indolence 
and improvidence, — to the refusal of labour, or to the misap- 
plication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or 
degradation, in this world about you, there, be sure, either 
industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error. It 
is not accident, it is not Heaven-commanded calamity, it is 
not the original and inevitable evil of man's nature, Avhich 
fill your streets with lamentation, and your graves with prey. 
It is only that, when there should have been providence, 
there has been waste ; when there should have been labour, 



PEECIOrS THOUGHTS. 53 

there has been lasciviousuess ; and wilfiUness, when there 
should have been subordination.* 



"the chukch" in the new testament. 

The word occurs in the New Testament, one hundred and 
fourteen times. In every one of those occuri'ences, it bears 
one and the same grand sense : that of a congregation or 
assembly of men. But it bears this sense mider four differ- 
ent modifications, giving four separate meanings to the word. 
These are — 

I. The entire Multitude of the Elect ; otherwise called the 
Body of Christ ; and sometimes the Bride, the Lamb's Wife ; 
including the Faithful in all ages; Adam, and the children of 
Adam, yet unborn. 

In this sense it is used in Ephesiaus v. 25, 27, 32 ; Colos- 
sians i. 18, and several other passages. 

II. The entire multitude of professing believers in Christ, 
existing on earth at a given moment ; including false bre- 
thren, wolves in sheep's clothing, goats, and tares, as well as 
sheep and wheat, and other forms of bad fish with good in 
the net. 

In this sense it is used in 1 Cor. x. 32 ; xv. 9 ; Galatians 
i. 13; 1 Tim. iii. 5, &c. 

III. The multitude of professed believers, living in a cer- 
tain city, place, or house. This is the most frequent sense in 
which the word occurs, as in Acts vii. 38 ; xiii. 1 ; 1 Cor* 
i. 2 ; xvi. 19, &g. 

ly. Any assembly of men: as in Acts xix. 32, 41. 

* Proverbs xiii. 23, " Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there 
is that is destroyed for want of judgment." 



54 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

That in a hundred and twelve out of'tlie hundred and four- 
teen texts, the word bears some one of these four meanings, 
is indisputable. But there are two texts in which, if the 
word had alone occurred, its meaning might have been 
doubtful. These are Matt. xvi. 18, and xviii. 17. 



SPECULATIOXS. 



There are some speculations that are fair and honest — spe- 
culations made with our o^vn money, and which do not 
involve in their success the loss, by others, of what we gain. 
But generally modein speculation involves much risk to 
others, with chance of profit only to ourselves : even in its 
best conditions it is merely one of the forms of gambling or 
treasure-hunting ; it is either leaving the steady plough and 
the steady pilgrimage of life, to look for silver mines beside 
the way ; or else it is the full stop beside the dice-tables in 
Vanity Fair — investing all the thoughts and passions of the 
soul in the fall of the cards, and choosing rather the wild 
accidents of idle fortune than the calm and accumulative 
rewards of toil. And this is destructive enough, at least to 
onr peace and virtue. But it is usually destructive of far more 
than our peace, or our virtue. Have you ever deliberately 
set yourselves to imagine and measure the suffering, the 
guilt, and the mortality caused necessarily by the failure of 
any large-dealing merchant, or largely-branched bank ? Take 
it at the lowest possible supposition — count, at the fewest you 
choose, the famiUes whose means of support have been 
involved in the catastrophe. Then, on the morning after the 
intelligence of ruin, let us go forth amongst them in earnest 
thought; let us use that imagination which we waste so often 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 65 

on fictitious sorrow, to measure the stern facts of that mnlti- 
tiulinons distress; strike open the private doors of their 
chambers, and enter silently into the midst of the domestic 
misery; look upon the old men who had reserved for their 
failing strength some remainder of rest in the evening-tide of 
hfe, cast helplessly back into trouble and tumult; look upon 
the active strength of middle age suddenly blasted into inca- 
pacity—its hopes crushed and its hardly-earned rewards 
snatched away in the same instant — at once the heart 
withered and the right arm snapped ; look upon the piteous 
children, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now large with 
wonder at their parents' grief, must soon be set in the dim- 
ness of famine ; and far more than all this, look forward to 
the length of sorrow beyond — to the hardest labour of life 
now to be undergone, either in all the severity of unexpected 
and inexperienced trial, or else, more bitter still, to be begun 
again, and endured for the second time, amidst the ruins of 
cherished hopes and the feebleness of advancing years, embit- 
tered by the continual sting and taunt of the inner feeling 
that it has all been brought about, not by the fair course of 
appointed circumstance, but by miserable chance and wanton 
treachery ; and, last of all, look beyond this — to th.e shat- 
tered destinies of those who have faltered under the trial, 
and sunk past recovery to despair. And then consider whe- 
ther the hand which has poured this poison into all the 
sjirings of life be one whit less guiltily red with human blood 
than that which literally pours the hemlock into the cup, or 
guides the dagger to the heart? We read with horror of 
the crimes of a Borgia or a Tophana ; but there never lived 
Boi-gias such as live now in the midst of us. The cruel lady 
of Ferrara slew only in the strength of passion — she slew 
only a few, those who thwarted hei* purposes or who vexed 
her soul ; she slew sharply and suddenly, embittering the fate 



oQ PEECIOFS THOUGHTS. 

of her victims with no foretastes of destruction, no prolonga- 
tions of pain ; and, finally and chiefly, she slew, not without 
remorse, nor without pity. But we, in no storm of passion — 
in no blindness of wrath, — we, in calm and clear and 
untempted selfishness, pour our poison — not for a few only, 
but for multitudes ; — not for those who have wronged us, or 
resisted, — but for those who have trusted us and aided ; — 
we, not with sudden gift of merciful and unconscious death, 
but with slow waste of hunger and weary rack of disappoint- 
ment and despair ; — we, last and chiefly, do our murdering, 
not with any pauses of pity or scorching of conscience, but 
in facile and forgetful calm of mind, — and so, forsooth, 
read day by day, complacently, as if they meant any one 
else than ourselves, the words that forever describe the 
wicked : " The poison of asps is under their lips, and their 
feet are swift to shed blood." 



BE WHAT NATURE INTENDED. 

Pure history and pure topography are most precious things ; 
in many cases more useful to the human race than high ima- 
ginative work ; and assuredly it is intended tliat a large 
majority of all who are employed in art should never aim at 
anything higher. It is onli/ vanity, never love, nor any other 
noble feeling, which prompts men to desert their allegiance 
to the simple truth, in vain pursuit of the imaginative truth 
which has been appointed to be for evermore sealed to them. 

Nor let it be supposed that artists who possess minor 
degrees of imaginative gift need be embarrassed by the 
doubtful sense of their own powers. In general, when the 
imagination is at all noble, it is irresistible^ and therefore 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 57 

those who can at all resist it ought to resist it. Be a plain 
topographer if you possibly can ; if Nature meant you to be 
anything else, she will force you to it ; but never try to be a 
prophet ; go on quietly with your hard camp-work, and the 
spirit will come to you in the camp, as it did to Eldad and 
Medad, if you are appointed to have it ; but try above all 
things to be quickly perceptive of the noble spirit in others, 
and to discern in an instant between its true utterance and 
the diseased mimicries of it. In a general way, remember it 
is a far better thing to find out other great men, than to 
become one yourself: for you can but become one at best, 
but you may bring others to light in numbers. 



SAILOES' SUPERSTITIONS. 

It is one notable effect of a life passed on shijDboard to 
destroy weak beliefs in appointed forms of religion. A sailor 
may be grossly superstitious, but liis superstitions will be 
connected with amulets and omens, not cast in systems. He 
must accustom himself, if he prays at all, to pray anywhere 
and anyhow. Candlesticks and incense not being portable 
into the maintop, he perceives those decorations to be, on 
the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set 
and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day, and it is 
found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore 
must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all, and they 
give it plenary and brief, without listening to confession. 



3* 



68 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



SANCTITY OF COLOUR. 



I do not think that there is anything more necessary to 
the progress of European art in the present day than the 
complete understanding of this sanctity of Colour. I had 
much pleasure in finding it, the other day, fully understood 
and thus sweetly expressed in a little volume of poems by a 
Miss Maynard : 

"For still in every land, though to Thy name 
Arose no temple, — still in every age, 
Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise, 
We praise Thee ; and at rise and set of sun 
Did we assemble duly, and intone 
A choral hymn that all the lands might hear. 
In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee, 
Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood. 
But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come, 
Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house, 
We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise 
Thee, Light of Light ! Thee, God of very God !" 

A Dream of Fair Colours. 

These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very 
unobtrusive and pure religious feeling in subjects connected 
with art. 



HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS. 



Put the fine dresses and jewelled girdles into the best 
group you can ; paint them with all Veronese's skill : will 
they satisfy you ? 

Not so. As lons^ as thev are in their due services and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 59 

subjection — Avhile their folds are formed by the motion of 
men, and their histre adorns the nobleness of men — so long 
the lustre and the folds are lovely. But cast them from the 
human limbs ; — golden circlet and silken tissue are withered ; 
the dead leaves of autmnn are more precious than they. 

This is just as true, but in a far deeper sense, of the wea\'- 
ing of the natural robe of man's soul. Fragrant tissue of 
flowers, golden circlets of clouds, are only fair when they 
meet the fondness of human thoughts, and glorify human 
visions of heaven. 



'"THY KINGDOM COME. 

So far as in it lay, this century has caused every one of its 
great men, whose hearts were kindest, and whose spirits 
most perceptive of the work of God, to die without hope : — 
Scott, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Turner. Great England, of the 
Iron-heart now, not of the Lion-heart ; for these souls of her 
children an account may perhaps be one day required of 
her. 

She has not yet read often enough that old story of the 
Samaritan's mercy. He whom he saved was going down 
from Jerusalem to Jericho — to the accursed city (so the old 
Church used to understand it). lie should not have left 
Jerusalem ; it was his own fault that he went out into the 
desert, and fell among the thieves, and was left for dead. 
Every one of these English children, in their day, took the 
desert bypath as he did, and fell among fiends — took to mak- 
ing bread out of stones at their bidding, and then died, torn 
and famished ; careful England, in her pure, priestly dress, 



60 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

passing by on the other side. So far as we are concerned, 
that is the account loe have to give of them. * 

So far as they are concerned, I do not fear for them ; — 
there being one Priest who never passes by. The longer I 
live, the more clearly I see how all souls are in His hand — 
the mean and the great. Fallen on the earth in their base- 
ness, or fading as the mist of morning in their goodness ; 
still in the hand of the potter as the clay, and in the temple 
of their master as the cloud. It was not the mere bodily 
death that He conquered — that death had no sting. It was 
this spiritual death which He conquered, so that at last it 
should be swallowed up — mark the word — not in life ; but in 
victory. As the dead body shall be raised to life, so also the 
defeated soul to victory, if only it has been fighting on its 
Master's side, has made no covenant with death ; nor itself 
bowed its forehead for his seal. Blind from the prison-house, 
maimed from the battle, or mad from the tombs, their souls 
shall surely yet sit, astonished, at His feet who giveth peace. 

Who giveth peace ? Many a peace we have made and 
named for ourselves, but the falsest is in that marvellous 
thought that we, of all generations of the earth, only know 
the right ; and that to us, at last, — -and us alone, — all the 
schemes of God, about the salvation of men, has been shown. 
"This is the light in which we are walking. Those vain 
Greeks are gone down to their Persephone for ever — Egypt 
and Assyria, Elam and her multitude, — uncircumcised, their 
graves are round about them — Pathros and careless Ethiopia 
— filled with the slain. Rome, with her thirsty sword, and 
poison wine, how did she walk in her darkness ! We only 

* It is strange that the last words Turner ever attached to a picture 
should have been these : — 

" The priest held the poisoned cup." 
Compare the words of 1798 with those of 1850. 



PIIECIOUS THOUGHTS. 61 

have no idolatries— ours are the seeing eyes ; in our pure 
hands at last, the seven-sealed book is haid ; to oar true 
tougues entrusted the preaching of a perfect gospel. Wlio 
sliall come after us ? Is it not peace ? The poor Jew, Zimri, 
who slew his master, there is no peace for him : but, for us ? 
tiara on head, may we not look out of the windows of 
heaven ?" 

Another kind of peace I look for than this, though I hear 
it said of me that I am hopeless. 

I am not hopeless, though my hope may be as Veronese's : 
the dark-veiled. 

Veiled, not because sorrowful, but because blind. I do 
not know what my England desires, or how long she will 
choose to do as she is doing now ; — with her right hand 
casting away the souls of men, and with her left the gifts of 
God. 

In the prayers which she dictates to her children, she tells 
them to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
Some day, perhaps, it may also occur to her as desirable to 
tell those children what she means by this. What is the 
world which they are to " light with," and how does it differ 
from the world which they are to " get on in ?" The expla- 
nation seems to me the more needful, because I do not, in 
the book we profess to live by, find anything very distinct 
about fighting with the world. I find something about fight- 
insr with the rulers of its darkness, and something^ also about 
overcoming it ; but it does not follow that this conquest is to 
be by hostility, since evil may be overcome with good. But 
I find it -written very distinctly that God loved the world, 
and that Christ is the light of it. 

What the much used words, therefore, mean, I cannot tell. 
But this, I believe, they should mean. That there is, indeed, 
one world which is full of care, and desire, and hatred : a 



62 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

world of wfir, of which Christ is not the light, which indeed 
is witliout lighit, and has never heard the great " Let there 
be." Which is, therefore, in truth, as yet no world ; but 
chaos, on the face of which, moving, the Spirit of God yet 
causes men to hope that a world will come. The better one, 
they call it : perhaps they might, more wisely, call it the real 
one. Also, I hear them speak continually of going to it, 
rather than of its coming to them ; which, again, is strange, 
for in that prayer which they had straight from the lips of 
the Light of the world, and which He apparently thought 
sufficient prayer for them, there is not anything about going 
to- another Avorld ; only something of another government 
coming into this ; or rather, not another, but the only govern- 
ment, — that government which will constitute it a world 
indeed, New heavens and new earth. Earth, no more with- 
out form and void, but sown with fruit of righteousness. 
Firmament, no more of passing cloud, but of cloud risen out 
of the crystal sea — cloud in which, as He was once received 
up, so He shall again come with power, and every eye shall 
see Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of 
Him. 

Kindreds of the earth, or tribes of it ! * — the " earth- 
begotten," the Chaos children— children of this present world, 
with its desolate seas and its Medusa clouds : the Dragon 
children, merciless : they who dealt as clouds without water : 
serpent clouds, by whose sight men were turned into stone ; 
— the time must surely come for their wailing. 

"Thy kingdom come," we are bid to ask then ! But how- 
shall it come ? With power and great glory, it is written ; 
and yet not wdth observation, it is also w^ritten. Strange 
kingdom ! Yet its strangeness is renewed to us with every 
dawn. 

* Compare Matt. xxiv. 30. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 63 

When the time comes for us to wake out of the world's 
sleep, why should it be otherwise than out of the dreams of 
the night ? Singing of birds, first, broken and low, as, not 
to dying eyes, but eyes that wake to life, " the casement 
slowly growls a glimmering square ;" and then the gray, and 
then the rose of dawn ; and last the light, whose going forth 
is to the ends of heaven. 

This kingdom it is not in our power to bring ; but it is, to 
receive. IS'ay, it has come already, in part ; but not received, 
because men love chaos best ; and the Night, with her daugh- 
ters. That is still the only question for us, as in the old Elias 
days, " If ye w^ill receive it." With pains it may be shut out 
still from many a dark place of cruelty; by sloth it may be 
still unseen for many a glorious hour. But the pain of shut- 
ting it out must grow greater and greater : — harder, every 
day, that struggle of man with man in the abyss, and shorter 
wages for the fiend's work. But it is still at our choice ; the 
simoom-dragon may still be served if we will, in the fiery 
desert, or else God walking in the garden, at cool of day. 
Coolness now, not of Hesperus over Atlas, stooped endurer 
of toil ; but of HeOsphorus over Sion, the joy of the earth.* 
The choice is no A'ag^ue or doubtful one. Hio-li on the desert 
mountain, full descried, sits throned the tempter, with his old 
promise — the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them. 
He still calls you to your labour, as Christ to your rest ; — 
labour and sorrow, base desire, and cruel hope. So far as 
you desire to possess, rather than to give ; so far as you look 
for power, to command, instead of to bless ; so far as your 
own prosperity seems to you to issue out of contest or rivalry, 
of any kind, with other men, or other nations; so long as the 

* Ps. xlviii. 2. — This joy it is to receive and to give, because its officers 
(governors of its acts) are to be Peace, and its exactors (governors of its 
dealings), Righteousness — Is. Lx. 17. 



64 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

hope before you is for supremacy instead of love ; and your 
desire is to be greatest, instead of least ; — first, instead of 
last ; — so long you are serving the Lord of all that is last, 
and least ; — the last enemy that shall be destroyed — Death ; 
and you shall have death's crown, with the worm coiled in it ; 
and death's wages, with the worm feeding on them ; kindred 
of the earth shall you yourself become ; saying to the grave, 
"Thou art my father;" and to the worm, "Thou art my 
mother, and my sister." 

I leave you to judge, and to choose, between this labour, 
and the bequeathed peace ; this wages, and the gift of the 
Morning Star ; this obedience, and the doing of the will 
which shall enable you to claim another kindred than of the 
earth, and to hear another voice than that of the grave, say- 
ing, " My brother, and sister, and mother." 



VULGAEITY. 

There is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of innate and 
real vulgarity of mind or defective education than the want 
of power to understand the universality of the ideal truth; 
the absence of sympathy with the colossal grasp of those 
intellects, which have in them so much of divine, that nothing 
is small to them, and nothing large ; but with equal and 
unofiended vision they take in the sum of the world, — Straw 
Street and the seventh heavens, — in the same instant. A 
certain portion of this divine spirit is visible even in the lower 
examples of all the true men ; it is, indeed, perhaps, the clear- 
est test of their belonging to the true and great group, that 
they are continually touching what to the multitude appear 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 65 

vulgarities. The higher a man stands, the more the word 
" vulgar" becomes unintelligible to him. 

We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in j^lain and few 
words, at least as far as regards art. There is never vul- 
garity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be 
unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is 
only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. 



SCIENCE. 

The common consent of men proves and accepts the propo- 
sition, that whatever part of any pursuit ministers to the 
bodily Cvymforts, and admits of material uses, is ignoble, and 
whatsoever part is addressed to the mind only, is noble ; and 
that geology does better in reclothing dry bones and reveal- 
ing lost creations, than in tracing veins of lead and beds of 
iron ; astronomy better in opening to us the houses of heaven 
than in teaching navigation ; botany better in displaying 
structure than in expressing juices ; surgery better in inves- 
tigating organization than in setting limbs; only it is or- 
dained that, for our encouragement, every step we make in 
the more exalted range of science adds something also to its 
practical applicabilities ; that all the great phenomena of 
nature, the knowledge of which is desired by the angels only, 
by us partly, as it reveals to farther vision the being and the 
glory of Him in whom they rejoice and we live, dispense yet 
such kind influences and so much of material blessing as to 
be joyfully felt by all inferior creatures, and to be desired by 
them with such single desire as the imperfection of their 
nature may admit ; that the strong torrents which in their 
own gladness fill the hills with hollow thunder and the vales 



66 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

with winding light, have yet their boimden charge of field to 
feed and barge to bear ; that the fierce flames to which the 
Alp owes its upheaval and the volcano its terror, temper for 
us the metal vein and quickening spring; and that for our 
incitement, I say not our reward, for knowledge is its own 
reward, herbs have their healing, stones their preciousness, 
and stars their times. 



IXFIXITY. 

That wdiich we foolishly call vastness is, rightly considered, 
not more wonderful, not more impressive, than that which we 
insolently call littleness, and the infinity of God is not myste- 
rious, it is only unfathomable, not concealed, but incompre- 
hensible : it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure 
unsearchable sea. 



NEAEXESS AND DISTANCE. 

Are not all natural things, it may be asked, as lovely near 
as far away ? Nay, not so. Look at the clouds, and watch 
the delicate sculpture of their alabaster sides, and the rounded 
lustre of their magnificent rolling. They are meant to be 
beheld far away ; they were shaped for their place, high 
above your head ; approach them, and they fuse into vague 
mists, or whirl away in fierce fragments of thunderous 
vapour. Look at the crest of the Alp, from the far-away 
plains over which its light is cast, whence human souls have 
communion with it by their myriads. The child looks up to 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 67 

it in the dawn, and the husbandman in the bnrden and heat 
of the day, and the old man in the going down of the smi, 
and it is to them all as the celestial city on the world's hori- 
zon ; dyed with the depth of heaven, and clothed with the 
calm of eternity. There was it set, for holy dominion, by 
Him who marked for the sun his journey, and bade the moon 
know her going down. It was built for its place in the far- 
off sky ; approach it, and as the sound of the voice of man 
dies away about its foundations, and the tide of human life, 
shallowed upon the vast aerial shore, is at last met by the 
Eternal '• Here shall thy waves be stayed," the glory of its 
aspect fades into blanched fearfulness ; its purple walls are 
rent into grisly rocks, its silver fretwork saddened into wast- 
ing snow; the storm-brands of ages are on its breast, the 
ashes of its own ruin lie solemnly on its white raiment. 



NOVELTY. 

" Custom hangs upon us, with & weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." 

And if we gro^v impatient under it, and seek to recover 
the mental energy by more quickly repeated and brighter 
novelty, it is all over with our enjoyment. There is no cure 
for this evil, any more than for the weariness of the imagina- 
tion already described, but in patience and rest : if we try to 
obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monoto- 
nous: and then we are reduced to that old despair, " If water 
chokes, what will you drink after it?" And the two points 
of practical wisdom in this matter are, fir^t, to be content 
Avith as little novelty as possible at a time ; and, secondly, to 



68 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

preserve, as much as possible in the world, the sources of 
novelty. 



EXCITEMENT OF THE IMAGINATION. 

Remember that when the imagination and feelings are 
strongly excited, they will not only bear with strange things, 
but they will looh into minute things with a delight quite 
unknown in hours of tranquillity. You surely must remem- 
ber moments of your lives in which, under some strong 
excitement of feeling, all the details of visible objects pre- 
sented themselves with a strange intensity and insistance, 
whether you would or no ; urging themselves uj^on the mind, 
and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascination which 
you could not refuse. Now, to a certain extent, the senses 
get into this state whenever the imagination is strongly 
excited. Things trivial at other times assume a dignity or 
significance which we cannot explain ; but which is only the 
more attractive because inexplicable : and the powers of 
attention, quickened by the feverish excitement, fasten and 
feed upon the minutest circumstances of detail, and remotest 
traces of intention. 



PEACE AND WAE. 



Both peace and war are noble or ignoble according to their 
kind and occasion. No man has a profounder sense of the 
horror and guilt of ignoble war than I have. I have person- 
ally seen its effects, upon nations, of unmitigated evil, on soul 



rilECIOUS THOUGHTS. 69 

and body, with perhaps as much pity, and as much bitterness 
of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear conti- 
nually declaiming in the cause of peace. But peace may be 
sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when 
he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, " God send peace," 
yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to 
seek it, and the peace was sent, in God's way : — " the coun- 
try w^as in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon." And 
the other way of seeking peace is as Menahem sought it when 
he gave the King of Assyria a thousand talents of silver, that 
"his hand might be with him." That is, you may either win 
your peace, or buy it : — win it, by resistance to evil ; — buy it, 
by compromise with evil. You may buy your peace, with 
silenced consciences ; — you may buy it, wdth broken vows, — 
buy it, with lying words, — buy it, with base connivances, — 
buy it, "with the blood of the slain, and the cry of the cap- 
tive, and the silence of lost souls — over hemispheres of the 
earth, while you sit smiling at your serene hearths, lisping 
comfortable prayers evening and morning, and counting your 
pretty Protestant beads (which are flat, and of gold, instead 
of round, and of ebony, as the monks' once were), and so 
mutter continually to yourselves, "Peace, peace," when there 
is Xo peace ; but only captivity and death, for you, as well 
as for those you leave unsaved ; — and yours darker than 
theirs. 

I cannot utter to you what I would in tliis matter; we all 
see too dimly, as yet, what our great world-duties are, to 
allow any of us to try to outline their enlarging shadows. 
But think over what I have said, and in your quiet homes 
reflect tliat their peace was not won for you by your own 
liands ; but by theirs who long ago jeoparded their lives for 
you, their children ; and remember that neither this inherited 
peace, nor any other, can be kept, but through the same jeo- 



70 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

pardy. 'No peace was ever won from Fate by subterfuge or 
agreement ; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that 
which we shall win by victory over shame or sin ; — victory 
over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which cor- 
rupts, i For many a year to come, the sword of every right- 
eous nation must be whetted to save or to subdue ; nor will it 
be by patience of others' suffering, but by the offering of 
your own, that you will ever draw nearer to the time when 
the great change shall pass upon the iron of the earth ; — when 
men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
spears into pruning-hooks ; neither shall they learn war any 
more. 



THE PLEASURES OF SIGHT. 

Had it been ordained by the Almighty that the highest 
pleasures of sight should be those of most difficult attain- 
ment, and that to arrive at them it should be necessary to 
accumulate gilded palaces tower over tower, and pile artifi- 
cial mountains around insinuated lakes, there would have 
been a direct contradiction between the unselfish duties and 
inherent desires of every individual. But no such contradic- 
tion exists in the system of Divine Providence, which, leav- 
ing it open to us, if we will, as creatures in probation, to 
abuse this sense like every other, and pamper it with selfish 
and thoughtless vanities as we pamper the palate with deadly 
meats, until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its sick- 
ened satiety, incapable of pleasure unless, Caligula-like, it 
concentrate the labour of a million of lives into the sensation 
of an hour, leaves it also open to us, by humble and loving 
ways, to make ourselves susceptible of deep delight from the 



PEECIOUS THOUGUTS. 11 

meanest objects of creation, and of a delight which shall not 
separate us from our fellows, nor require the sacrifice of any 
duty or occupation, but which shall bind us closer to men 
and to God, and be with us always, harmonized with every 
action, consistent with every claim, unchanging and eternal. 



PEIDE. 

Pride is base from the necessary foolishness of it, because 
at its best, that is when grounded on a just estimation of our 
own elevation or superiority above certain others,[it cannot 
but imply that our eyes look downward only, and have never 
been raised above our own measure, for there is not the man 
so lofty in his standing nor capacity but he must be humble 
in thinking of the cloud habitation and far sight of the 
angelic intelligences above him, and in perceiving what 
infinity there is of things he cannot know nor even rench 
unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he 
can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether under- 
stand not one : not to speak of that wicked and fond attri- 
buting of such excellency as he may have to himself, and 
thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence 
and criminality of pride, nor of those viler forms of it, 
founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irra- 
tional contemning of them : but taken at its best, it is still 
base to that degree that there is no grandeur of feature 
which it cannot destroy and make despicable. 



12 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



TRUE LIBERTY. 



Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not 
chains, but chain mail — strength and defence, though some- 
thing also of an incumbrance. And this necessity of restraint, 
remember, is just as honourable to man as the necessity of 
labour. You hear every day greater numbers of foolish peo- 
ple speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable 
thing : so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the 
broadest sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the lower 
creatures. No human being, however great or powerful, 
was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that 
lie must, or must not do ; Avhile the fish may do whatever he 
likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not 
half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels 
that ever were, or will be, invented are not so easy as fins. 
You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his Restraint 
Avhich is honourable to man, not his Liberty ; and, what is 
more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower 
animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee ; but you"^ 
honour the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws 
which fit it for orderly function in bee society. And through- 
out the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and 
restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. It is true, 
indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can rea- 
son finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint 
are good Avhen they are rK)bly chosen, and both are bad when 
they are basely chosen; but of the two, I i-epeat, it is restraint 
which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower 
creature: and, from the ministering of the archangel to the 
labour of the insect, — from the poising of the planets to the 
gravitation of a grain of dust, — the power and glory of all 
creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 73 

their freedom. The Sun has no liberty — a dead leaf has 
much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty. 
Its liberty will come — with its corruption. 



WEAK THINGS MADE STRONG. 

Is not this a strange type, in the very heart and height of 
tliese mysterious Alps — these wrinkled hills in their snowy, 
cold, grey-haired old age, at first so silent, then, as we keep 
quiet at their feet, muttering and whispering to us garru- 
lously, in broken and dreaming fits, as it were, about their 
childhood — is it not a strange type of the things which " out 
of weakness are made strong !" If one of those little flakes 
of mica-sand, hurried in tremulous spangling along the bot- 
tom of the ancient river, too light to sink, too faint to float, 
almost too small for sight, could have had a mind given to it 
as it was at last borne down with its kindred dust into the 
abysses of tlie stream, and laid (would it not have thought ?) 
for a hopeless eternity in the dark ooze, the most despised, 
forgotten, and. feeble of all earth's atoms ; incapable of any 
use or change; not fit, down there in the diluvial darkness, 
so much as to help an earth-wasp to build its nest, or feed 
the first fibre of a lichen ; — what would it have thought, had 
it been told that one day, knitted mto a strength as of impe- 
rishable ii-on, rustless by the air, infusible by the flame, out 
of the substance of it, with its fellows, the axe of God should 
hew that Alpine tower ; that against it — poor, helpless, mica 
flake! — the Avild north winds should rage in vain; beneath 
it — low-fallen mica flake! — the snowy hills should lie bowed 
like flocks of sheep, and the kingdoms of the earth fade away 
in unregarded blue ; and around it — weak, wave-drifted mica 

4 



V4 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

flake ! — the great war of the firmament should burst in thun- 
der, and yet stir it not ; and the fiery arrows and angry 
meteors of the night fall blunted back from it into the air ; 
arid all tlie stars in the clear heaven should light, one by one 
as they rose, new cre.'-sets upon the points of snow that 
fringed its abiding-j^lace on the imperishable spire ! 



THE TRUTH OF TEUTHS. 

Truth is to be discovered, and Pardon to be won for every 
man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts of 
Scripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to 
seek after Truth, and which connect knowing^ with doincf. 
We are to seek after knowledge as silver, and search for her 
as for hid treasures ; therefore, from every man she must be 
naturally hid, and the discovery of her is to be the reward 
only of personal search. The kingdom of God is as treasure 
hid in a field ; and of those Avho profess to help us to seek 
for it, we are not to put confidence in those who say, — Here 
is the treasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give 
you some of it ; but to those who say, — We think that is a 
good place to dig, and you will dig most easily in such and 
such a way. 

Farther, it has been promised that if such earnest search be 
made, Truth shall be discovered: as much truth, that is, as is 
necessary for the person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, 
for two fundamental principles of religion, — that, without 
seeking, truth cannot be known at all ; and that, by seeking, 
it may be discovered by the simplest. I say, without seek- 
ing it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared 
from pulpits, nor set dovvn in Articles, nor in any wise "pre- 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS, 75 

pared and sold " in packages, ready for use. Truth must be 
ground for every man by himself out of its husl:, with such 
help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labour of 
his own. In what science is knowledge to be had cheap ? or 
truth to be told over a velvet cushion, in half an hour's talk 
every seventh day ? Can you learn chemistry so ? — zoology ? 
— anatomy ? and do you expect to penetrate the secret of all 
secrets, and to know that whose i^rice is above rubies ; and 
of which the depth saith, — It is not in me, in so easy fashion? 
There are doubts in this matter which evil spirits darken 
with their wings, and that fs true of all such doubts which 
we were told long ago — they can "be ended by action alone." 
As surely as w^e live, this truth of truths can only so be 
discerned : to those who act on what they know, more shall 
be revealed ; and thus, if any man will do His will, he shall 
know the doctrine w^hether it be of God. Any man : — not 
the man who has most means of knowing, who has the sub- 
tlest brains, or sits under the most orthodox preacher, or has 
his library fullest of most orthodox books — but the man who 
strives to know, who takes God at His word, and sets himself 
to dig up the heavenly mystery, roots and all, before sunset, 
and the night come, w-hen no man can work. Beside such a 
man, God stands in more and more visible presence as he 
toils, and teaches him that which no preacher can teacli — no 
earthly authoiity gainsay. By such a man, the preacher must 
himself be judged. 



Anything which makes religion its second object, makes 
religion no object. God will put up^vith a great many things 



76 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

in the humnn heart, but there is one thing He will not put 
np with in it — a second plaice. He who offers God a second 
place, offers Him 710 plac^^^ 



MEMBERS OF THE CHUECH. 

Men not in office in the Church suppose themselves, on 
that ground, in a sort unholy ; and that, therefore, they may 
sin with more excuse, and be idle or impious wifh less danger, 
than the Clergy : especially they consider themselves relieved 
from all ministeriarfunction, and as permitted to devote their 
whole time and energy to the business of this world. No 
mistake can possibly be greater. Every member of the 
Church is equally bound to the service of the Head of the 
Church ; and that service is preeminently the saving of souls. 
There is not a moment of a man's active life in which he may 
not be indirectly preaching; and throughout a great part 
of his life he ought to be directly preaching, and teaching 
both strangers and friends; his children, his servants, and all 
who in any way are put under him, being given to him as 
especial objects of his ministration. 



DISCERNMENT OP CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 

If we hear a man profess himself a believer in God and in 
Christ, and detect him in no glaring and wilful violation of 
God's law, we speak of him as a Christian ; and, on the other 
hand, if we hear him or see him denying Christ, either in his 
words or conduct, we tacitly assume him not to be a Chris- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 77 

tian. A mawkish charity prevents us from outsjDeakmg in 
this matter, and from earnestly endeavourmg to discern who 
are Christians and who are not; and this I hold to be one of 
the chief sins of the Church in the present day; for thus 
wicked men are put to no shame ; and better men are encou- 
raged in their failings, or caused to hesitate in their virtues, 
by the example of those whom, in false charity, they choose 
to call Christians. 



PATROXAGE OF ART. 

As you examine into the career of historical painting, you 
will be more and more struck with the fact I have stated to 
you, — that none was ever truly great but that which repre- 
sented the living forms and daily deeds of the people among 
whom it arose; — that all precious historical work records, 
not the past but the present. Eemember, therefore, that it 
is not so much in buying pictures, as in being pictures, that you 
can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is 
not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague 
ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image ; but that 
which educates your children into living heroes, and binds 
down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practi- 
cal duty and faithful devotion. 



COMPANIONSHIP "WITH NATURE. 

To the mediaeval knight, from Scottish moor to Syrian 
sand, the world was one gi'eat exercise ground, or field of 



78 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

adventure ; the staunch pacing of his charger penetrated the 
pathlessness of outmost forest, and sustained the sultriness of 
the most secret desert. Frequently alone, — or, if accompa- 
nied, for the most part only by retainers of lower rank, inca- 
pable of entering into complete sympathy with any of his 
thoughts, — he must have been compelled often to enter into 
dim comi^anionship with the silent nature aroimd him, and 
must assuredly sometimes have talked to the wayside flowers 
of his love, and to the fading clouds of his ambition. 



ALL CARVING AND NO MEAT. 

The divisions of a church are much like the divisions of a 
sermon ; they are always right so long as they are necessary 
to edification, and always wrong when they are thrust upon 
the attention as divisions only. There may be neatness io 
carving when there is richness in feasting ; but I have heard 
many a discourse, and seen many a church wall, in which it 
was all carvincr and no meat. 



THE TRUE CHURCH. 

The Church which is composed of Faithful men, is the one 
true, indivisible and indiscernible Church, built on the foun- 
dation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
the chief corner-stone. It includes all who have ever fallen 
asleep in Christ, and all yet unborn, who are to be saved in 
Him ; its Body is as yet impei-fect ; it will not be perfected 
till the last saved human spirit is gathered to its God. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 79 

A man becomes a member of this Churcli only by believing 
in Christ witli all his heart ; nor is he positively recognizable 
for a member of it, when he has become so, by any one but 
God, not even by himself. Nevertheless, there are certain 
signs by which Christ's sheep may be guessed at. Not by 
their being in any definite Fold — for many are lost sheep at 
times : but by their sheep-like behaviour ; and a great many 
are indeed sheep which, on the far mountain side, in their 
peacefulness, we take for stones. To themselves, the best 
proof of their being Christ's sheep is to find themselves on 
Christ's shoulders ; and, between them, there are certain sym- 
pathies (expressed in the Apostles' Creed by the term " com- 
munion of Saints"), by which they may in a sort recognise 
each other, and so become verily visible to each other foi 
mutual comfort. 



FLOWERS. 



Flowers seem intended f )r the solace of ordinary human- 
ity; children love them; quiet, tender, contented ordinary 
people love them as they grow ; luxurious and disorderly 
people rejoice in them gathered : They are the cottager's 
treasure ; and in the crowded town, mark, as with a little 
broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in 
whose heart rests the covenant of peace. Passionate or reli- 
gious minds contemplate them with fond, feverish intensity ; 
the affection is seen severely calm in the works of many old 
religious painters, and mixed with more open and true coun- 
try sentiment in those ot our own pre-Raphaelites. To the 
child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing ope- 
rative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and monk, 



80 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

they are precious always. But to the men of supreme power 
and thoughtfulness, precious only at times ; symbolically and 
pathetically often to the poets, but rarely for their own s.ike. 
They fall forgotten from the great workmen's and soldiers' 
hands. Such men will take, in thankfulness, crowns of leaves, 
or crowns of thorns — not crowns of flowers. 



THE CLOUD-BALATvrCi:N^GS. 

When the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of 
man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread 
between him and its darkness, in which were joined, in a sub- 
dued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and 
the passion and perishing of mankind. 

But the heavens, also, had to be prepared for his habita- 
tion, 

J^etw^een their burning light, — their deep vacuity, and man, 
as between the earth's gloom of iron substance, and man, a 
veil had to be spread of intermediate being ; which should 
appease the unendurable glory to the level of human feeble- 
ness, and sign the changeless motion of the heavens with a 
semblance of human vicissitude. 

Between earth and man arose the leaf. Between the 
heaven and man came the cloud. His life being partly as the 
falling leaf, and partly as the flying vapor. 

Has the reader any distinct idea of what clouds are ? We 
had some talk about them long ago, and perhaps thought 
their nature, though at that time not clear to us, would be 
easily enough understandable when we put ourselves seriously 
to make it out. Shall we begin with one or two easiest ques- 
tions? 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 81 

That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley, 
level and white, througli which the tops of the trees rise as if 
through an inundation — why is it so heavy ? and why does it 
lie so low, being yet so tliin and frail that it will melt away 
utterly into splendour of morning, when the sun has shone on 
it but a few moments more. Those colossal pyramids, huge 
and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the 
beating of the higli sun full on their fiery flanks — why are 
they so light, — their bases high over our heads, high over the 
heads of Alps ? why will these melt away, not as the sun 
rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight 
clear, while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth like 
a shroud ? 

Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump of 
pines ; nay, which does not steal by them, but haunts them, 
wreathing yet round them, and yet — and yet, slowly : now 
falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil; now fading, 
now gone : we look away for an instant, and look back, and 
it is again there. What has it to do with that clump of 
pines, that it broods by them and weaves itself among their 
branches, to and fro ? Has it hidden a cloudy treasure 
among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus ? Or 
has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or 
bound it fast within those bars of bough ? And yonder filmy 
ci'escent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, 
the highest of all the hill, — that white arch which never forms 
but over the supreme crest, — how is it stayed there, repelled 
apparently from the snow — nowhere touching it, the clear sky 
seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it 
— poised as a white bird hovers over its nest ? 

Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon- 
crested, tongued with fire ; — how is their barbed strength 
bridled? what bits are these they are champing with their 

4* 



82 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

vaporous lips ; flinging off flakes of black foam ? Leagued 
leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their nostrils goeth 
smoke, and their eyes are like tlie eyelids of the morning. 
The sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, 
the dart, nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of 
their armies? Where are set the measures of their march ? 
Fierce murmurers, answering each other from morning until 
evening — what rebuke is this which has awed them into 
peace ? what hand has reined them back by the way by 
which they came. 

I know not if the reader will think at first that questions 
like these are easily answered. So flir from it, I rather believe 
that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will be under- 
stood by us at all. " Knowest thou the balancings of the 
clouds ? " Is the answer ever to be one of jDride ? " The 
wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge ? " Is 
our knowledge ever to be so ? 

It is one of the most discouraging consequences of the 
varied character of this work of mine, that I am wholly 
unable to take note of the advance of modern science. What 
has conclusively been discovered or observed about clouds, I 
know not ; but by the chance inquiry possible to me I find no 
book which fairly states the difficulties of accounting for even 
the ordinary aspects of the skv. I shall, therefore, be able in 
this section to do little more than suggest inquiries to the 
reader, putting the subject in a clear form for him. All men 
accustomed to investigation will confirm me in saying that it 
is a great step when we are j^ersonally quite certain what we 
do not know. 

First, then, I believe we do not know what miakes clouds 
float. Clouds are water, in some fine form or another : but 
water is heavier than air, and the finest form you can give a 
heavy thing will not make it float in a light thing. On it, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 83 

yes; as a boat: but in it, no. Clouds are not boats, nor 
boat-shaped, and they float in the air, not on the top of it. 
" Nay, but though unhke boats, may they not be Uke feath- 
ers ? If out of quill substance there may be constructed 
eider down, and out of vegetable tissue, thistle-down, botii 
buoyant enough for a time, surely of water-tissue may be 
constructed also water-down, which will be buoyant enough 
for all cloudy purposes." Not so. Throu^ out your eider 
plumage in a calm day, and it will all come settling to the 
ground : slowly indeed, to aspect; but practically so fast that 
all our finest clouds would be here in a heap about our ears 
in an hour or two, if they were only made of water feathers. 
"But may they not be quill feathers, and have air inside 
them? May not all their particles be minute little bal- 
loons?" 

A balloon only floats when the air inside it is either speci- 
fically, or by lieating, lighter than the air it floats in. If the 
cloud-feathers had warm air inside their quills, a cloud w^ould 
be warmer than the air about it, which it is not (I believe). 
And if the cloud-feathers had hydrogen inside their quills, a 
cloud would be unwholesome for breathing, vdiich it is not — 
at least so it seems W^ 

"But may they not have nothing inside their quills?" 
Then they would rise, as bubbles do through water, just as 
certainly as, if they w^ere solid feathers, they would fall. All 
our clouds would go up to the top of the air, and swim in 
eddies of cloud-foam. 

" But is not that just what they do ? " No. They float at 
different heights, and with definite forms, in the body of the 
air itself If they rose like foam, the sky on a cloudy day 
would look like a very large flat glass of champagne seen 
from below, with a stream of bubbles (or clouds) going up as 
fast as they could to a flat foam-ceiling. 



84 PRECIOUS THOiJGIITS. 

"But may they not be just so nicely mixed out of some- 
thing and nothing, as to float where they are wanted ? " 

Yes : that is just what they not only may, but must be : 
only this way of mixing something and notliing is the very 
thing I want to explain or have explained, and cannot do it, 
nor get it done. 

Except thus far. It is conceivable that minute hollow 
spherical globes might be formed of water, in which the 
enclosed vacuity just balanced the weight of the enclosing 
water, and that the arched sphere formed by the watery film 
was strong enough to prevent the pressure of the atmosphere 
from breaking it in. Such a globule would float like a bal- 
loon at the height in the atmosphere where the equipoise 
between the vacuum it enclosed, and its own excess of weight 
above that of the air, was exact. It would, probably, 
approach its companion globules by reciprocal attraction, and 
form aggregations which might be visible. 

This is, I believe, the view usually taken by meteorologists. 
I state it as a possibility, to be taken into account in examin- 
ing tl^ question — a possibility confirmed by the scriptural 
words which I have taken for the title of this chapter. 

Nevertheless, I state it as a possibility only, not seeing how 
any known operation of physical law could explain the for- 
mation of such molecules. This, however, is not the only 
difficulty. Whatever shape the water is thrown into, it 
seems at first improbable that it should lose its property of 
wetness. Minute division of rain, as in " Scotch mist," makes 
it capable of floating farther, or floating up and down a little, 
just as dust will float, though pebbles will not; or gold-leaf, 
though a sovereign will not ; but minutely divided rain wets 
as much as any other kind, whereas a cloud, })artially always, 
sometimes entirely, loses its power of moistening. Some low 
clouds look, when you are in them, as if they were made of 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 85 

specks of dust, like short hairs ; and these clouds are entirely 
dry. And also many clouds will wet some substances, but 
not others. So that we must grant farther, if we are to be 
hajipy in our theory, that the spherical molecules are held 
together by an attraction which prevents their adhering to 
any foreign body, or perhaps ceases only under some peculiar 
electric conditions. 

The question remains, even supposing their production 
accounted for, — What intermediate states of water may 
exist between these spherical hollow molecules and pure 
vapor ? 

Has the reader ever considered the relations of com- 
monest forms of volatile substance ? The invisible particles 
which cause the scent of a rose-leaf, how minute, how multi- 
tudinous, passing richly away into the air continually ! The 
visible cloud of frankincense — why visible ? Is it in conse- 
quence of the greater quantity, or larger size of the particles, 
and how does the heat act in throwing them off in this 
quantity, or of this size ? 

Ask the same questions respecting water. It dries, that is, 
becomes volatile, invisibly, at (any ?) temperature. Snow 
dries, as water does. Under increase of heat, it volatilizes 
faster, so as to become dimly visible in large mass, as a heat- 
haze. It reaches boiling point, then becomes entirely visi- 
ble. But compress it, so that no air shall get between the 
watery particles — it is invisible again. At the first issuing 
from the steam-pipe the steam is transparent ; but opaque, or 
visible, as it diffuses itself. The water is indeed closer, 
because cooler, in that diffusion ; but more air is between its 
particles. Then this very question of visibility is an endless 
one, wavering between form of substance and action of light. 
The clearest (or least visible) stream becomes brightly opaque 
by more minute division in its foam, and the clearest dew in 



86 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

hoar-frost. Dnst, unperceived in shade, becomes constantly 
visible in sunbeam ; and watery vapor in tlie atmosphere, 
which is itself opaque, when there is promise of line weather, 
becomes exquisitely transparent ; and (questionably) blue, 
when it is going to rain. 

Questionably blue : for besides knowing very little about 
water, we know^ what, except by courtesy, must, I think, be 
called Nothing — about air. Is it the watery vapor, or the 
air itself, which is blue? Are neither blue, but only white, 
producing blue w^hen seen over dark spaces ? If either blue, 
or white, why, when crimson is their commanded dress, are 
the most distant clouds crimsonest ? Clouds close to us may 
be blue, but far off golden, — a strange result, if the air is 
blue. And again, if blue, why are rays that come through 
large spaces of it red ; and that Alp, or anything else that 
catches far-away light, why colored red at dawn and sunset ? 
No one knows, I believe. It is true that many substances, as 
opal, are blue, or green, by reflected hght, yellow by trans- 
mitted ; but air, if blue at all, is blue always by transmitted 
light. I hear of a wonderful solution of nettles, or other 
unlovely herb, which is green when shallow, — red when deep. 
Perhaps some day, as the motion of the heavenly bodies by 
help of an apple, their light by help of a nettle, may be 
explained to mankind. 

But farther : these questions of volatility, and visibiUty, 
and hue, are all complicated with those of shape. How is a 
cloud outlined ? Granted whatever you choose to ask, con- 
cerning its material, or its aspect, its loftiness and luminous- 
ness, — how of its limitation ? What hews it into a heap, or 
spins it into a web ? Cold is usually shapeless, I suppose, ex- 
tending over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. 
You cannot have, in the open air, angles, and wedges, and 
coils, and chfts of cold. Yet the vapor stops suddenly, sharp 



PRECIOUS THOtTGHTS. 8*7 

and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across the gates of heaven 
in likeness of a brazen bar ; or braids itself in and out, and 
across and across, like a tissue of tapestry; or fliUs into rip- 
ples, like sand ; or into waving shreds and tongues, as fire. 
On what anvils and wheels is the vapor pouited, twisted, ham- 
mered, Avhu-led, as tlie potter's chiy? By what hands is the 
incense of the sea built up into domes of marble ? 

And, lastly, all these questions respecting substance, and 
aspect, and shape, and line, and division, are involved with 
others as inscrutable, concerning action. The curves in which 
clouds move are unknown ; — nay, the very method of their 
motion, or apparent motion, how far it is by change of place, 
hoAV far by appearance in one place and vanishing from 
another. And these questions about movement lead partly 
far away into high mathematics, where I cannot follow them, 
and partly into theories concerning electricity and infinite 
space, where I suppose at present no one can follow them. 

What, then, is the use of asking the questions ? 

For my own part, I enjoy the mystery, and perhaps the 
reader may. I think he ought. He should not be less grate- 
ful for summer rain, or see less beauty in the clouds of morn- 
ing, because they come to prove him with hard questions ; to 
which, perhaps, if we look close at the heavenly scroll,* we 
may find also a syllable or two of answer illuminated here 
and there. 

* There is a beautiful passage in Sartor Besartus concerniug this old 
Hebrew scroll, in its deeper meanings, and the child's watching it, though 
long illegible for him, yet " with an eye to the gilding." It signifies in a 
word or two nearly all that is to be said about clouds. 



88 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



PEATl OF DEATH. 



For, exactly in proportion as the pride of life became more 
insolent, the fear of death became more servile ; and the dif- 
ference in the manner in which the men of early and later 
days adorned the sepulchre, confesses a still greater difference 
in their manner of regarding death. To those he came as 
the comforter and the friend, rest in his right hand, hope in 
his left; to these as the humiliator, the spoiler, and the aven- 
ger. And, therefore, we find the early tombs at once sim2)le 
and lovely in adornment, severe and solemn in their expres- 
sion ; confessing the power, and accepting the peace, of 
death, openly and joyfully ; and in all their symbols marking 
that the hope of resurrection lay only in Christ's righteous- 
ness ; signed always with this simple utterance of the dead, 
" I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest ; for it is 
thou, Lord, only that makest me dwell in safety." But the 
tombs of the later ages are a ghastly struggle of mean pride 
and miserable ten-or : the one mustering the statues of the 
Virtues about the tomb, disguising the sarcophagus with 
delicate sculpture, polishing the false periods of the elaborate 
epitaph, and filling with strained animation the features of 
the portrait statue ; and the other summoning underneath, 
out of the niche or from behind the curtain, the frowning 
skull, or scythed skeleton, or some other more terrible image 
of the enemy in whose defiance the whiteness of the sepul- 
chre had been set to shine above the whiteness of the 
ashes. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 89 



RECREATION. 

It is one tbing to indulge in playful rest, and another to be 
devoted to the pursuit of pleasure : and gaiety of heart dur- 
ing the reaction after hard labour, and quickened by satisfac- 
tion in the accomplished duty or perfected result, is altogether 
compatible with, nay, even in some sort arises naturally out 
of, a deep internal seriousness of disposition. 



TYPES. 

I trust that some day the language of Types will be more 
read and understood by us than it has been for centuries ; 
and when this language, a better one than either Greek or 
Latin, is again recognized amongst us, we shall find, or 
remember, that as the other visible elements of the universe 
— its air, its water, and its flame — set forth, in their pure 
energies, the life-giving, purifying, and sanctifying influences 
of the Deity upon His creatures, so the earth, in its purity, 
sets forth His eternity and His Truth. I have dwelt above 
on the historical language of stones ; let us not forget this, 
which is their theological language ; and, as we would not 
wantonly jDollute the fresh waters when they issue forth in 
their clear glory from the rock, nor stay the mountain winds 
into pestilential stagnancy, nor mock the sunbeams with arti- 
ficial and ineffective light ; so let us not by our own base and 
barren falsehoods, replace the crystalline strength and burn- 
ing colour of the earth from which we were born, and to which 
we must return ; the earth which, like our own bodies, though 
dust in its degradation, is full of splendour when God's hand 



90 PEECIOFS THOUGHTS. 

gathers its atoms ; and which was for ever sanctified by Him, 
as the symbol no less of His love than of His truth, when He 
bade the high priest bear the names of the Children of Israel 
on the clear stones of the Breastplate of Judgment. 



EXPLAININ^G NATURE. 

The sea was meant to be irregular ! Yes, and were not 
also the leaves, and the blades of grass ; and, in a sort, as far 
as may be without mark of sin, even the countenance of 
man ? Or would it be pleasanter and better to have us all 
alike, and numbered on our foreheads, that we might be 
known one from the other ? 

Is there, then, nothing to be done by man's art ? Have we 
only to copy, and again copy, for ever, the imagery of the 
universe ? Kot so. We have work to do upon it ; there is 
not any one of us so simple, nor so feeble, but he has work 
to do upon it. But the work is not to improve, but to 
explain. This infinite universe is unfathomable, inconceivable, 
in its whole ; every human creature must slowly spell out, 
and long contemplate, such part of it as may be possible for 
him to reach ; then set forth what he has learned of it for 
those beneath him; extricating it from infinity, as one gathers 
a violet out of grass ; one does not improve either violet or 
grass in gathei'ing it, but one makes the flower visible ; and 
then the human being has to make its power upon his own 
heart visible also, and to give it the honour of the good 
thoughts it has raised up in him, and to write upon it the 
history of his own soul. And sometimes he may be able to 
do more than this, and to set it in strange lights, and display 
it in a thousand ways before unknown : ways especially 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 91 

directed to necessary and noble purposes, for which he had 
to choose instruments out of the wide armoury of God. All 
this he may do : and in this he is only doing Avhat every 
Christian has to do with the written, as well as the created 
word, " rightly dividing the word of truth." Out of the 
infinity of the written word, he has also to gather and set 
forth things new and old, to choose them for the season and 
the work that are before him, to explain and manifest them 
to others, with such illustration and enforcement as may be 
in his power, and to crown them with the history of what, 
by them, God has done for his soul. And, in doing this, is 
he improving the Word of God ? 



THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. 

Perhaps it may be thought, if we understood flowers bet- 
ter, we might love them less. 

We do not love them much, as it is. Few people care 
about flowers. Many, indeed, are fond of finding a new shape 
of blossom, caring for it as a child cares about a kaleidoscope. 
Many, also, like a fair service of flowers in the greenhouse, 
as a fair service of plate on the table. Many are scientifically 
interested in them, though even these in the nomenclature 
rather than the flowers. And a few enjoy their gardens ; but 
I have never heard of a piece of land, which would let well 
on a building lease, remaining unlet because it was a flowery 
piece. I have never heard of parks being kept for wild 
hyacinths, though often of their being kept for wild beasts. 
And the blossoming time of the year being principally 
spring, I perceive it to be the mind of most people, during 
that period, to stay in towns. 



92 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

A year or two ago, a keen-sighted and eccentrically 
minded friend of mine, having taken it into his head to vio- 
late this national custom, and go to the Tyrol in spring, was 
passing through a valley near Landech, with several similarly 
headstrong companions. A strange mountain aj^peared in the 
distance, belted about its breast with a zone of blue, like our 
English Queen. Was it a blue cloud ? A blue horizontal 
bar of the air that Titian breathed in youth, seen now far 
away, which mortal might never breathe again ? Was it a 
mirage — a meteor ? Would it stay to be approached ? (ten 
miles of winding road yet between them and the foot of its 
mountain.) Such questioning had they concerning it. My 
keen-sighted friend alone maintained it to be substantial : 
whatever it might be, it was not air, and would not vanish. 
The ten miles of road were overpassed, the carriage left, the 
mountain climbed. It stayed patiently, expanding still into 
richer breadth and heavenlier glow— a belt of gentians. Such 
things may verily be seen among the Alps in spring, and in 
s]3ring only. Which being so, I observe most people prefer 
going in autumn. 



THE EARTH-VEIL. 

" To dress it and to keep it." 

That, then, was to be our work. Alas ! what work have 
we set ourselves upon instead ! How have we ravaged the 
garden instead of kept it — feeding our war-horses with its 
flowers, and splintering its trees into spear-shafts ! 

" And at the East a flaming sword." 

Is its flame quenchless ? and are those gates that keep the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 93 

way indeed passable no more ? or is it not ratber that we no 
more desire to enter ? For what can we conceive of tbat 
first Eden wbich we migbt not yet win back, if Ave chose ? 
It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well : the flowers are 
always striving to grow wherever we suffer them ; and the 
fiirer, the closer. There may indeed have been a Fall of 
Flowers, as a Fall of Man ; but assuredly creatures such as 
we are can now fancy nothing lovelier than roses and lilies, 
which would grow for us side by side, leaf overlapping leaf, 
till the Earth was white and red with them, if we cared to 
have it so. And Paradise was full of pleasant shades and 
fruitful avenues. Well : what hinders us from covering: as 
much of the world as we like with pleasant shade and pure 
blossom, and goodly fruit ? Who forbids its valleys to be 
covered over with corn, till they laugh and sing ? Who pre- 
vents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabitable, from being 
changed into infinite orchards, wreathing the hills with frail- 
floretted snow, far away to the half-lighted horizon of April, 
and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with glow^ of 
clustered food ? But Paradise was a place of peace, we say, 
and all the animals w^ere gentle servants to us. Well : the 
world w ould yet be a place of peace if we were all peace- 
makers, and gentle service should we have of its creatures if 
we gave them gentle mastery. But so long as w^e make sport 
of slaying bird and beast, so long as we choose to contend 
rather with our fellows than with our faults, and make battle- 
field of our meadows instead of pasture — so long, truly, the 
Flaming Sword will still turn every way, and the gates of 
Eden remain barred close enough, till we have sheathed the- 
sharper flame of our own passions, and broken down the 
closer gates of our own hearts. 

I have been led to see and feel this more and more, as I 
considered the service which the flowers and trees, which 



94 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

man was at first appointed to keep, were intended to render 
to him in return for his care ; and the services they still ren- 
der to him, as far as he allows their influence, or fulfils his 
own task towards them. For what infinite wonderfulness 
there is in this vegetation, considered, as indeed it is, as the 
means by which the earth becomes the companion of man — 
his friend and his teacher ! In the conditions which we have 
traced in its rocks, there could only be seen preparation for 
his existence ;— the characters which enable him to live on it 
safely, and to work with it easily — in all these it has been 
inanimate and j)assive ; but vegetation is to it as an imperfect 
soul, given to meet the soul of man. The earth in its depths 
must remain dead and cold, incapable except of slow crystal- 
line change ; but at its surface, which human beings look 
upon and deal with, it ministers to them through a v^eil of 
strange intermediate being ; which breathes, but has no 
voice ; moves, but cannot leave its appointed place ; passes 
through life without consciousness, to death without bitter- 
ness ; wears the beauty of youth, without its passion ; and 
declines to the weakness of age, without its regret. 

And in this mystery of intermediate being, entirely subor- 
dinate to us, with which we can deal as we choose, having 
just the greater power as we have the less responsibility for 
our treatment of the unsuffering creature, most of the plea- 
sures which we need from the external world are gathered, 
and most of the lessons we need are written, all kinds of pre- 
cious grace and teaching being united in this link between the 
Earth and Man : wonderful in universal adaptation to his 
need, desire, and discipline ; God's daily preparation of the 
earth for hira, with beautiful means of life. First a carpet to 
make it soft for him ; then, a colored fentasy of embroidery 
thereon ; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from 
sun-heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 95 

quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs 
among tlie moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage : easily to 
be cut, yet tough and light, to make houses for him, or instru- 
ments (lance-shaft, or plough-handle, according to his tem- 
per) ; useless it had been, if harder ; useless, if less fibrous ; 
useless, if less elastic. Winter comes, and the shade of leaf- 
age foils away, to let the sun warm the earth ; the strong 
bouschs remain, breakins: the strength of winter winds. The 
seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according 
to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into 
infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man, or provision for his 
ser\ ice ;- cold juice, or glowing spice, or balm, or incense, 
softening oil, preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, 
or lulling chai-m : and all these presented in forms of endless 
change. Fragility or force, softness and strength, in all 
degrees and aspects ; unerring uprightness, as of temple pil- 
lars, or undivided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground ; 
mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of 
ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of sinnmer 
streamlet. Roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding 
the transience of the sand ; crests basking in sunshine of the 
desert, or hiding by di'ipping spring and lightless cave ; 
foliage far tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of 
ocean — clothing with variegated, everlasting films, the peaks 
of the trackless mountains, or ministering at cottage doors to 
every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity. 

Being thus prepared for us in all w\ays, and made beauti- 
ful, and good for food, and for building, and for instruments 
of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless afiec- 
tion and admiration from us, become, in pro|)ortion to their 
obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right tem- 
per of mind and way of life; so that no one can be far wrong 
in either who loves the trees enough, and every one is assured- 



96 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ly wrong in both, who does not love them, if his life has 
brought them in his way. It is clearly possible to do without 
them, for the great companionship of the sea and sky are all 
that sailors need ; and many a noble heart has been taught 
the best it had to learn between dark stone walls. Still if 
human life be cast among trees at all, the love borne to them 
is a sure test of its purity. And it is a sorrowful proof of the 
mistaken ways of the world that the "country," in the simple 
sense of a place of fields and trees, has hitherto been the 
source of reproach to its inhabitants, and that the words 
" countryman, rustic, clown, paysan, villager," still signify a 
rude and untaught person, as opposed to the words "towns- 
man," and "citizen." We accept this usage of words, or the 
evil which it signifies, somewhat too quietly ; as if it were 
quite necessary and natural that country-people should be 
rude, and towns-people gentle. Whereas I believe that the 
result of each mode of life may, in some stages of the world's 
progiess, be the exact reverse ; and that another use of Avords 
may be forced upon us by a new aspect of facts, so that we 
may find ourselves saying: "Such and such a person is very 
gentle and kind — he is quite rustic; and such and such ano- 
ther person is very rude and ill-taught — he is quite urbane." 

At all events, cities have hitherto gained the better part 
of their good report through our evil ways of going on in the 
world generally ; — chiefly and eminently through our bad 
habit of fighting with each other. No field, in the middle 
ages, being safe from devastation, and every country lane 
yielding easier passage to the marauders, peacefully-minded 
men necessarily congregated in cities, and Availed themselves 
in, making as few cross-country roads as possible : while the 
men who sowed and reaped the harvests of Europe w^ere only 
the servants or slaves of the barons. The disdain of all agri- 
cultural pursuits by the nobility, and of all plain facts by the 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 97 

monks, kept educated Europe in a state of mind over which 
natural phenomena could have no power ; body and intellect 
being lost in the practice of war without purpose, and the 
meditation of words without meaning. Men learned the dex- 
terity with sword and syllogism, which they mistook for edu- 
cation, within cloister and tilt-yard ; and looked on all the 
broad space of the world of God mainly as a place for exer- 
cise of horses, or for growth of food. 

There is a beautiful type of this neglect of the perfectness 
of the Earth's beauty, by reason of the passions of men, in 
that picture of Paul Uccello's of the battle of Sant' Egidio, 
in which the armies meet on a country road beside a hedge 
of wild roses ; the tender red flowers tossing above the hel- 
mets, and glowing between the lowered Innces. For in like 
manner the whole of Nature only shone hitherto for man 
between the tossing of helmet-crests ; and sometimes I can- 
not but think of the trees of the earth as capable of a kind of 
sorrow, in that imperfect life of theirs, as tliey opened their 
innocent leaves in the warm spring-time, in vain for men ; 
and all along the dells of England her beeches cast their 
dappled shade only where the outlaw drew his bow, and the 
king rode his careless chase ; and by the sweet French rivers 
their long ranks of poplar waved in the twilight, only to 
show the flames of burning cities, on the horizon, through 
the tracery of their stems ; amidst the fair defiles of the 
Apeimines, the twisted olive-trunks hid the ambushes of 
treachery ; and on their valley meadows, day by day, the 
lilies which were white at the dawn were washed with crim- 
son at sunset. 

And indeed I had once purposed, in this work, to sho>v 
what kind of evidence existed respecting the possible inll - 
ence of country life on men ; it seeming to me, then, likely 
that here and there a reader would perceive this to be a, 

5 



98 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

grave question, more than most which we contend about, 
]3o]itical or social, and might care to follow it out with me 
earnestly. 

The day will assuredly come when men will see that it is a 
grave question ; at which period, also, I doubt not, there will 
arise persons able to investigate it. 



THE INFLUEiSrCE OF CUSTOM. 

Custom has a twofold operation : the one to deaden the 
frequency and force of repeated impressions, the other to 
endear the familiar object to the affections. Commonly, 
where the mind is vigorous, and the po\ver of sensation very 
perfect, it has rather the last operation than the first ; with 
meaner minds, the first takes place in the higher degree, so 
that they are commonly characterized by a desire of excite- 
ment, and the want of the loving, fixed, theoretic power. 
But both take place in some degree with all men, so that as 
life advances, impressions of all kinds become less rai:>turous 
owing to their repetition. It is however beneficently ordained 
that repulsivencss shall be diminished by custom in a far 
greater degree than the sensation of beauty, so that the ana- 
tomist in a little time loses all sense of horror in the torn flesh 
and carious bone, while th^ sculptor ceases not to feel to the 
close of his life, the deliciousness of every line of the out- 
ward frame. So then as in that with which we are made 
familiar, the repulsivencss is constantly diminishing, and such 
claims as it may be able to put forth on the afiections are 
daily becoming stronger, while in wdiat is submitted to us of 
new or strange, that which may be repulsive is felt in its full 
force, w^hile no hold is as yet laid on the affections, there is a 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 99 

very strong preference induced in most minds for that to 
which they are accustomed over that tliey know not, and this 
is strongest in those which are least oj)en to sensations of 
positive beauty. But however far this operation may be 
carried, its utmost effect is but tiie deadening and approxi- 
mating the sensations of beauty and ugliness. It never mixes 
nor crosses, nor in any way alters them ; it has not the slight- 
est connection with nor power over their nature. By tasting 
two wines alternately, we may deaden our perception of their 
flavour ; nay, Ave may even do more than can ever be done 
in the case of sight, we may confound the two flavours toge- 
ther. But it will hardly be argued therefore that custom is 
the cause of either flavour. And so, though by habit we may 
deaden the effect of uglhiess or beauty, it is not for that 
reason to be aflirmed that habit is the cause of either sensa- 
tion. We may keep a skull beside us as long as vre please, 
we may overcome its repulsiveness, we may render ourselves 
capable of perceiving many qualities of beauty about its lines, 
we may contemplate it for years together if we will, it and 
nothing else, but Ave shall not get ourselves to think as well 
of it as of a child's fair face. 



DEVELOPMENT. 

I believe an immense gain in the bodily health and happi- 
ness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily endea- 
vouring, however clumsily, to make the physical exertion 
they now necessarily take in amusements, definitely service- 
al)le. It would be far better, for instance, that a gentleman 
should mow his own fields than ride over other people's. 

Again, respecting degrees of possible refinement, I cannot 



100 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

yet speak positively, because no effort has yet been made to 
teach refined habits to persons of simple life. 

The idea of such refinement has been made to appear 
absurd, j)artly by the foohsh ambition of vulgar persons in 
low life, but more by the worse than foolish assumption, 
acted on so often by modern advocates of improvement, that 
'* education" means teaching Latin, or algebra, or music, 
01 drawing, instead of developing or " drawing out " the 
human soul. 

It may not be the least necessary that a peasant should 
know algebra, or Greek, or drawing. But it may, perhaps, 
be both possible and expedient that he should be able to 
arrange his thoughts clearly, to speak his own language intel- 
ligibly, to discern between right and wrong, to govern his 
passions, and to receive such pleasures of ear or sight as his 
life may render accessible to him. T would not have him 
taught the science of music; but most assuredly I would 
have him taught to eing. I would not teach him the science 
of drawing; but certainly I would teach him to see; without 
learning a single term of botany, he should know accurately 
the habits and uses of every leaf and flower in his fields; 
and unencumbered by any theories of moral or political phi- 
losophy, he should help his neighbour, and disdain a bribe. 



THE REAL USE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 

All effort in social improvement is paralyzed, because no 
one has been bold or clear-sighted enough to put and press 
home this radical question : " What is indeed the noblest tone 
and reach of life for men ; and how can the possibility of it 
be extended to the greatest numbers?" It is answered 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 101 

broadly and rashly, that wealth is good ; tliat knowledge is 
good ; that art is good ; that luxury is good. Whereas none 
of them are good in the abstract, but good only if rightly 
received. 'Nov have any steps whatever been yet securely 
taken, — nor otherwise than in the resultless rhapsody of 
moralists, — to ascertain what luxuries and what lenrning it is 
either kind to bestow, or wise to desire. This, however, at 
least we know, shown clearly by the history of all time, that 
the arts and sciences, ministering to the pride of nations, 
have invariably hastened their ruin ; and this, also, without 
venturing to say that I know, I nevertheless firmly believe, 
that the same arts and sciences will tend as distinctly to exalt 
the strength and quicken the soul of every nation which 
employs them to increase the comfort of lowly life, and grace 
with happy intelligence the unambitious courses of honour- 
able toil. 



THE SYMBOL OF FEAE. 

I might devote half a volume to a descrijDtion of the fan- 
tastic and incomprehensible arrangement of the rocks and 
their veins; but all that is necessary for the general reader to 
know or remember, is this broad fict of the undulation of 
their whole substance. For there is something, it seems to me 
inexpressibly marvellous in this phenomenon, largely looked 
at. They have nothing of the look of dried earth about 
them, nothing petty or limited in the display of their bulk. 
Where they are, they seem to form the world ; no mere bank 
of a river here, or of a lane there peeping out among the 
hedges or forests : but from the lowest valley to the highest 
clouds, all is theirs — one adamantine dominion and rigid 



102 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

authority of rock. We yield ourselves to the impression of 
tlieir eternal, unconquerable stubbornness of strength ; their 
mass seems the least yielding, least to be softened, or in any- 
wise dealt with by external force, of all earthly substance. 
And, behold, as we look farther into it, it is all touched and 
troubled, like waves by a summer breeze ; rippled, far more 
delicately than seas or lakes are rippled ; they only undulate 
along their surfaces — this rock trembles through its every 
fibre, like the chords of an EoHan harp — like the stillest air 
of spring with the echoes of a child's voice. Into the heart 
of all those great mountains, through every tossing of their 
boundless crests, and deep beneath all their unfiithomable 
defiles, flows that strange quivering of their substance. 
Other and weaker things seem to express their subjection to 
an Infinite power only by momentary terrors : as the weeds 
bow down before the feverish wind, and the sound of the 
going in the tops of the taller trees passes on before the 
clouds, and the fitful opening of pale spaces on the dark 
water as if some invisible hand were casting dust abroad upon 
it, gives warning of the anger that is to come, we may well 
imagine that there is indeed a fear passing upon the grass, 
and leaves, and waters, at the presence of some great spirit 
commissioned to let the tempest loose ; but the terror passes, 
and their sweet rest is perpetually restored to the pastures 
and the waves. ISTot so to the mountains. They, which at 
first seem strengthened beyond the dread of any violence or 
change, are yet also ordained to bear upon them the symbol 
of a perpetual Fear : the tremor which fades from the soft 
lake and gliding river is sealed, to all eternity, upon the rock ; 
and while things that pass visibly from birth to death may 
sometimes forget their feebleness, the mountains are made to 
possess a perpetual memorial of their infancy,— that infancy 
which the prophet saw in his vision : "I beheld the earth, 



PEECIOFS THOUGHTS. 103 

and lo, it was without form and void, and the heavens, and 

they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they 
tremhled ; and all the hills moved lightly.^'' 



GE AD ATI ox. 

There is a marked likeness between tlie virtue of man and 
the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits — the same dimi- 
nishing gradation in vigor up to the limits of their domains, 
the same essential separation from their contraries — the same 
twilight at the meeting of the two : a something wider belt 
than the line where the world rolls into night, that strange 
twilight of the virtues ; tliat dusky debateable land, wherein 
zeal becomes impatience, and temperance becomes severity, 
and justice becomes cruelty, and faith supei'stition, and each 
and all vanish into gloom. 

ISTevertheless, with the greater number of them, though 
their dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment 
of their sunset ; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by 
the way by which it had gone down : but for one, the line of 
the horizon is irregular and undefined; and this, too, the very 
equator and girdle of them all — Truth ; that only one of 
which there are no degrees, but breaks and rents continually ; 
that pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillar ; that golden and 
narrow line, which the very powers and virtues that lean upon 
it bend, which policy and prudence conceal, which kindness 
and courtesy modify, which courage overshadows with his 
shield, imagination covers with her wings, and charity dims 
with her tears. IIow difficult must the maintenance of that 
authority, be, which, while it has to restrain the hostility of 
all the worst principles of man, has also to restrain the dis- 



104 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

orders of his best — which is continually assaulted by the one 
and betrayed by the other, and which regards with the same 
severity the lightest and the boldest violations of its law ! 



LOVE AXD TRUST. 

My dear friend and teacher, Lowell, right as he is in almost 
everything, is for once wrong in these lines, though with a 
noble wrongness : — 

" Disappointment's dry and bitter root, 
Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool 
Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk 
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind." 

They are not so ; love and trust are the only mother-milk 
of any man's soul. So far as he is hated and mistrusted, his 
powers are destroyed. Do not think that with impunity you 
can follow the eyeless fool, and shout with the shouting char- 
latan ; and that the men you thrust aside with gibe and blow, 
are thus sneered and crushed into the best service they can 
do you. I have. told you ihey loill not serve you for pay. 
They cannot serve you for scorn. Even from Balaam, money- 
lover though he be, no useful prophecy is to be had for silver 
or gold. From Elisha, savior of hfe though he be, no saving 
of life — even of children's, who " knew no better," — is to be 
got by the cry. Go up, thou bald-head. No man can serve 
you either for purse or curse ; neither kind of pay will answer. 
ISTo pay is, indeed, receivable by any true man ; but power is 
receivable by him, in the love and faith you give him. So far 
only as you give him these can he serve you; that is the 
meaning of the question which his Master asks always. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 105 

"Believest thou that I am able?" x\nd from every one of 
His servants — to tlie end of time— if von give them the Caper- 
naum measure of faith, you shall have from them Capernaum 
measure of works, and no more. 

Do not think that I am irreverently comparing great and 
small things. The system of the world is entirely one; small 
things and great are ahke part of one mighty whole. As the 
flower is gnawed by frost, so every human heart is gnawed 
by faithlessness. And as surely, — as irrevocably, — as the 
fruit-bud falls before the east wind, so fails the power of the 
kindest human heart, if you meet it with poison. 



INFIDELITY IN ENGLAND. 

The form which the infidelity of England, especially, has 
taken, is one hitherto unheard of in human history. No 
nation ever before declared boldly, by print and word of 
mouth, that its religion was good for show, but " would not 
work." Over and over again it has happened that nations 
have denied their gods, but they denied them bravely. The 
Greeks in their decline jested at their religion, and frittered it 
away in flatteries and fine arts ; the French refused theirs 
fiercely, tore down their altars and brake their carven images. 
The question about God with both these nations was still, even 
in their decline, fairly put, though falsely answered. " Either 
there is or is not a Supreme Ruler ; we consider of it, declare 
there is not, and proceed accordingly." But we English have 
put the matter in an entirely new light : " There is a Supreme 
Ruler, no question of it, only He cannot rule. His orders 
won't work. He Avill be quite satisfied with euphonious and 
respectful repetition of them. Execution would be too dan- 



106 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

gerons under existing circumstances, which He certainly 
never contemplated." 



THE NOBLENESS OF COLOUR. 

The fact is, we none of us enough appreciate the nobleness 
and sacredness of colour. Nothing is more common than to 
hear it spoken of as a subordinate beauty, — nay, even as the 
mere source of a sensual pleasure ; and we might almost 
believe that we were daily among men who 

" Could strip, for aught the prospect yields 
To them, their verdure from the fields ; 
And take the radiance from the clouds 
With which the sun his setting shrouds." 

But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most 
part in thoughtlessness ; and if the speakers would only take 
the pains to imagine what the world and their own existence 
would become, if the blue were taken from the sky, and 
the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure from the 
leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of 
man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the 
radiance from the hair, — if they could but see for an instant, 
white human creatures living in a white world, — they would 
soon feel what they owe to colour. The fact is, that, of all 
God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most 
divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly of gay colour, and 
sad colour, for colour cannot at once be good and gay. All 
good colour IS in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melan- 
choly, and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those 
which love colour the most. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 107 



THE KAIXBOW. 



In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes of colour 
upon the front of the sky, when it became the sign of the 
covenant of peace, the pure hues of divided light were sanc- 
tified to the human heart for ever; nor this, it would seem, 
by mere arbitrary appointment, but in consequence of tlie 
fore-ordained and marvellous constitution of those hues into 
a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order, typical 
of the Divine nature itself Observe also, the name Shem, or 
Splendour, given to that son of Noah in whom this covenant 
with mankind was to be fulfilled, and see how that name was 
justified by every one of the Asiatic races which descended 
from him. Not without meaning was the love of Israel to 
his chosen son expressed by the coat " of many colours ;" not 
without deep sense of the sacredness of that symbol of purity, 
did the lost daughter of David tear it from her breast : — 
" With such robes were the king's daughters that were vir- 
gins apparelled."* We know it to have been by Divine com- 
mand that the Israelite, rescued from servitude, veiled the 
tabernacle with its rain of j^urple and scarlet, while the under 
sunshine flashed through the fall of the colour from its tenons 
of gold. 



BROTHERHOOD. 

Whether, indeed, derived from the quarterings of the 

knights' shields, or from what other source, I know not ; 

but there is one mng^nificent attribute of the colourins: of the 

late twelfth, the whole thirteenth, and the early fourteenth 

* 2 Samuel xiiL 18. 



108 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

century, which I do not find definitely in any previous work, 
nor afterwards in general art, though constantly, and neces- 
sarily, in that of great colourists, namely, the union of one- 
colour with another by reciprocal interference : that is to sa}', 
if a mass of red is to be set beside a mass of blue, a piece of 
the red will be carried into the blue, and a piece of the blue 
carried into the red ; sometimes in nearly equal portions, as 
in a shield divided into four quarters, of which the upper- 
most on one side will be of the same colour as the lowermost 
on the other ; sometimes in smaller fragments, but, in the 
periods above named, always definitely and grandly, though 
in a thousand various ways. And I call it a magnificent prin- 
ciple, for it is an eternal and universal one, not in art only, 
but in human life. It is the great principle of Brotherhood, 
not by equality, nor by likeness, but by giving and receiving; 
the souls that are unlike, and the nations that are unlike, and 
the natures that are unlike, being bound into one noble whole 
by each receiving something from, and of, the others' gifts 
and the others' glory. I have not space to follow out this 
thought, — it is of infinite extent and application, — but I note 
it for the reader's pursuit, because I have long believed, and 
the whole second volume of "Modern Painters" was written 
to prove, that in whatever has been made by the Deity exter- 
nally delightful to the human sense of beauty, there is some 
type of God's nature or of God's laws ; nor are any of His 
laws, in one sense, greater than the appointment that the 
most lovely and perfect unity shall be obtained by the taking 
of one nature into another. I trespass upon too high ground ; 
and yet I cannot fully show the reader the extent of this law, 
but by leading him thus far. And it is just because it is so 
vast and so awful a law, that it has rule over the smallest 
things ; and there is not a vein of colour on the Hghtest leaf 
which the spring winds are at this moment unfolding in the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 109 

fields around us, but it is an illustration of an ordainment to 
which the earth and its creatures owe their continuance, and 
their Redemption. 



THE HARVEST IS EIPE. 

"Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe." The word 
is spoken in our ears continually to other reapers than the 
angels — to the busy skeletons that never tire for stooping. 
When the measure of iniquity is full, and it seems that ano- 
ther day might bring repentance and redemption, — " Put ye 
in the sickle." When the young hfe has been wasted all 
away, and the eyes are just opening upon the tracks of ruin, 
and faint resolution rising in the heart for nobler things, — 
" Put ye in the sickle." When the roughest blows of fortune 
have been borne long and bravely, and the hand is just 
stretched to grasp its goal, — "Put ye in the sickle." And 
when there are but a few in the midst of a nation, to save it, 
or to teach, or to cherish ; and all its life is bound up in those 
few golden ears, — " Put ye in the sickle, pale reapers, and 
pour hemlock for your feast of harvest home." 



MISSING THE MARK. 

Perhaps, some day, people will again begin to remember 
the force of the old Greek word for sin ; and to learn that all 
sin is in essence — " 3Iissing the mark ;" losing sight or con- 
sciousness of heaven ; and that this loss may be various in its 
guilt : it cannot be judged by us It is this of which the 



110 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

words are spoken so sternly, " Judge not ;" wliich words 
l^eople always quote, I observe, when they are called upon 
to " do judguient and justice." For it is truly a pleasant 
thing to condemn men for their wanderings ; but it is a bitter 
thing to acknowledge a truth, or to take any bold share in 
working out an equity. So that the habitual modern practi- 
cal application of the precept, "Judge not," is to avoid the 
trouble of pronouncing verdict, by taking, of any matter, the 
pleasantest malicious view which first comes to hand ; and 
to obtain licence for our own convenient iniquities, by being 
indulgent to those of others. 

These two methods of obedience being just the two which 
are most directly opposite to the law of mercy and truth. 

" Bind them about thy neck." I said, but now, that of an 
evil tree men never gathered good fruit. 



LIFE AXD LOVE. 

I must not enter here into the solemn and far-reaching 
fields of thought which it would be necessary to traverse, in 
order to detect the mystical connection between life and love 
set foi'th in that Hebrew system of sacrificial religion to which 
we may trace most of the received ideas respecting sanctity, 
consecration, and purification. This only I must hint to the 
reader — for his own following out — that if he earnestly exa- 
mines the original sources from which our heedless popular 
language respecting the washing away of sins has been bor- 
rowed, he will find that the fountain in Avhich sins are indeed 
to be washed away, is that of love, not of agony. 

But, without approaching the presence of this deeper mean- 
ing of the sign, the reader may rest satisfied with the connec- 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. Ill 

tion given him directly in written words, between the cloud 
and its bow. The cloud, or firmament, as we have seen, sig- 
nifies the ministration of the heavens to man. That ministra- 
tion may be in judgment or mercy — in the lightning, or the 
dew. But the bow, or colour, of the cloud, signifies always 
mercy, the s}3aring of life ; such ministry of the heaven, as 
shall feed and prolong life. And as the sunlight, undivided, 
is the type of the wisdom and righteousness of God, so 
divided, and softened into colour by means of the firmamental 
ministry, fitted to every need of man, as to every delight, 
and becoming one chief source of human beauty, by being 
made part of the flesh of man ; — thus divided, the sunlight 
is the type of the wisdom of God, becoming sanctification 
and redemption. Various in work — various in beauty — 
various in power. 

Colour is, therefore, in brief terms, the type of love. Hence 
it is especially connected with the blossoming of the earth ; 
and again, with its fruits ; also, with the spring and fall of 
the leaf, and with the morning and evening of the day, in 
order to show the waiting of love about the birth and death 
of man. 



SYMBOLS OF TRUTH. 

The fact seems to be that strength of religious feeling is 
capable of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in tlie 
rudest suggestions of art, and will either, on the one hand, 
purify what is coarse into inoffensiveness, or, on the other, 
raise what is feeble into impressiveness. Probably all art, as 
such, is unsatisfactory to it ; and the effoi-t wliich it makes to 
supply the void will be induced ratlier by association and 



112 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

accident than by the real merit of the work submitted to it. 
The likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a 
habitual conception, the freedom from any strange or offen- 
sive particularity, and, above all, an interesting choice of 
incident, will win admiration for a picture when the noblest 
efforts of religious imagination would otherwise fail of power. 
How much more, when to the quick capacity of emotion is 
joined a childish trust that the picture does indeed represent 
a fact ! It matters little whether the fact be w^ell or ill told ; 
the moment we believe the picture to be true, we complain 
little of its being ill-painted. Let it be considered for a 
moment, whether the child, with its coloured print, inquiring 
eagerly and gravely which is Joseph, and which is Benjamin, 
is not more capable of receiving a strong, even a sublime, 
impression from the rude symbol which it invests with reality 
by its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires the 
grouping of the three figures in Raphael's " Telling of the 
Dreams ; " and whether also, when the human mind is in 
right religious tone, it has not always this childish power — I 
speak advisedly, this power — a noble one, and possessed more 
in youth than at any period of after life, but always, I think, 
restored in a measure by religion — of raising into sublimity 
and reality the rudest symbol which is given to it of accre- 
dited truth. 



STRIVING AFTER PERFECTIOIJT. 



The modern English mind has this much in common with 
that of the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the 
utmost completion or perfection compatible with their nature. 
This is a noble character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble 



PllECIOUS THOUGHTS. 113 

wlien it causes u§ to forget the relative dignities of that 
nature itself, and to prefer the perfectncss of the lower nature 
to the imperfection of the higher ; not considering that as, 
judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would be prefer- 
able to man, because more perfect in their functions and 
kind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the 
works of man, those which are more perfect in their kind are 
always inferior to those which are, in their nature, Hable to 
more feults and shortcomings. For the finer the nature, the 
more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is 
a law of this universe, that the best things shall be selclomest 
seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and 
strongly, one year with another ; but the w^heat is, according 
to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer 
blight. And therefore, wdiile in all things that we see, or do, 
we are to desire perfection, and strive for it, we are never- 
theless not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplish- 
ment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty progress ; not to 
esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty ; not to 
prefer mean victory to honourable defeat ; not to lower the 
level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the 
complacency of success. But, above all, in our dealings with 
the souls of other men, we are to take care how we check 
by severe requirement or narrow caution, efforts which mio-ht 
otherwise lead to a noble issue ; and, still more, how we with- 
hold our admiration from great excellences, because they are 
mimrled with rouah faults. 



114 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



THE PINES AND THE SWISS. 



Amidst the delicate delight of cottage and field, the young 
pines stand delicatest of all, scented as with frankincense, 
their slender stems straight as arrows, and crystal white, look- 
ing as if they would break with a touch, like needles ; and 
their arabesques of dark leaf pierced through and through, 
by the pale radiance of clear sky, opal blue, w^here they fol- 
low each other along the soft hill-ridges, up and down. 

I have watched them in such scenes with the deeper interest, 
because of all trees they have hitherto had most influence on 
human character. The effect of other vegetation, however 
great, has been divided by mingled species ; elm a^id oak in 
England, poplar in France, birch in Scotland, olive in Italy 
and Spain, share their power with inferior trees, and with all 
the changing charm of successive agriculture. But the tre- 
mendous unity of the pine absorbs and moulds the life of a 
race. The pine shadows rest upon a nation. The Xorthei-n 
peoples, century after century, lived under one or other of 
the two great powers of the Pine and the Sea, both infinite. 
They dwelt amidst the forests, as they wandered on the 
waves, and saw no end, nor any other horizon ; — still the dark 
green trees, or the dark green waters, jagged the dawn with 
their fringe, or their foam. And whatever elements of imagi- 
nation, or of warrior strength, or of domestic justice, w^re 
brought down by the Norwegian and the Goth against the 
dissoluteness or degradation of the South of Europe, were 
taught them under the green roofs and wild penetralia of the 
pine. 

I do not attempt, delightful as the task would be, to trace 
this influence (mixed with superstition) in Scandinavia, or 
North Germany ; but let us at least note it in the instance 
which we speak of so frequently, yet so seldom take to heart. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 115 

There has been much dispute respecting the character of the 
Swiss, arising out of the difficulty which other nations had to 
understand their simplicity. They were assumed to be either 
romantically virtuous, or basely mercenary, when in fact they 
were neither heroic nor base, but were true-hearted men, stub- 
born with more than any recorded stubbornness ; not much 
regarding their lives, yet not casting them causelessly away ; 
forming no high ideal of improvement, but never relaxing 
their grasp of a good they had once gained ; devoid of all 
romantic sentiment, yet loving with a practical and patient 
love that neither wearied nor forsook ; little given to enthu- 
siasm in religion, but maintaining their faith in a purity which 
no worldliness deadened and no hypocrisy soiled ; neither 
chivalrously generous nor pathetically humane, yet never 
pursuing their defeated enemies, nor suffering their poor to 
perish : proud, yet not allowing their j^ride to prick them into 
unwary or unworthy quarrel; avaricious, yet contentedly 
rendering to their neighbour his due; dull, but clear-sighted 
to all the principles of justice ; and patient, without ever 
allowing delay to be prolonged by sloth, or forbearance by 
fear. 

This temper of Swiss mind, while it animated the whole 
confederacy, was rooted chiefly in one small district which 
formed the heart of their country, yet lay not among its high- 
est mountains. Beneath the glaciers of Zermatt and Evolena, 
and on the scorching slopes of the Valais, the peasants 
remained in an aimless torpor, unheard of but as the obedient 
vassals of the great Bishopric of Sion. But where the lower 
ledges of calcareous rock were broken by the inlets of the 
Lake Lucerne, and bracing winds penetrating from the north 
forbade the growth of the vine, compelling the peasantry to 
adopt an entirely pastoral life, was reared another race of 
men. Their narrow domain should be marked by a small 



116 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

green sj^ot on every map of Europe. It is about forty miles 
froni east to west ; as many from north to south : yet on that 
shred of rugged ground, while every kingdom of the world 
around it rose or fell in fatal change, and every multitudinous 
race mingled or wasted itself in various dispersion and decline, 
the simj)le shepherd dynasty remained changeless. There is 
no record of their origin. They are neither Goths, Burgun- 
dians, Romans, nor Germans. They have been for ever Hel- 
vetii, and for ever free. Voluntarily placing themselves under 
the protection of the House of Hapsburg, they acknowledged 
its supremacy, but resisted its oppression ; and rose against 
the unjust governors it appointed over them, not to gain, 
but to redeem their liberties. Victorious in the struggle by 
the Lake of Egeri, they stood the foremost standard-bearers 
among the nations of Europe in the cause of loyalty and 
life — loyalty in its highest sense, to the laws of God's 
helpful justice, and of man's faithful and brotherly forti- 
tude. 



PEEC [PICES. 

Precipices are among the most impressive as well as the 
most really dangerous of mountain ranges ; in many spots 
inaccessible with safety either from below or from above ; 
dark in colour, robed with everlasting mourning, for ever 
tottering like a great fortress shaken by war, fearful as much 
in their weakness as in their strength, and yet gathered after 
every fall into darker frowns and unhumiliated threatening; 
for ever incapable of comfort or of healing from herb or 
flower, nourishing no root in their crevices, touched by no 
hue of life on buttress or ledge, but, to the utmost, desolate ; 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 117 

knowing no shaking of leaves in the wind, nor of grass beside 
the stream, — no motion but their own mortal shivering, the 
deathful crumbling of atom from atom in their corrupting 
stones ; knowing no sound of living voice or living tread, 
cheered neither by tlie kid's bleat nor the marmot's cry ; 
haunted only by uninterpreted echoes from far off, wandering 
hither and thither among their walls, unable to escape, and by 
the hiss of angry torrents, and sometimes the shriek of a bii-d 
that flits near the face of them, and sweeps frightened back 
from under their shadow into the gulf of air: and, some- 
times, when the echo has fainted, and the wind has carried 
the sound of the torrent away, and the bird has vanished, and 
the mouldering stones are still for a little time, — a brown 
moth, opening and shutthig its wings upon a grain of dust, 
may be the only thing that moves, or feels, in all the waste 
of w^eary precipice, darkening five thousand feet of the blue 
depth of heaven. 

It will not be thought that there is nothing in a scene such 
as this deserving our contemplation, or capable of conveying 
useful lessons, if it were fitly rendered by art. 



THE USE OF PICTURES. 

We should use pictures not as authorities, but as comments 
on nature, just as we use divines, not as authorities, but as 
comments on the Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-wor- 
ship, excommunicates himself from all benefit of the Church, 
and deprives himself of much instruction from the Scripture 
to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the read- 
ing of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beau- 
mont, on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of 



118 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

him in Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degrada- 
tion into which the human mind may full, when it suffers 
human works to interfere between it and its jVIaster. The 
recommending the colour of an old Cremona fiddle for the 
j^revailing tone of everything, and the vapid inquiry of the 
conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown tree?" show 
a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable, that 
they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery, a 
satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile 
indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two 
dangerous extremes to be shunned, — forgetfulness of the 
Scripture, and scorn of the divine — slavery on the one hand, 
free-thinkmg on the other. The mean is nearly as difficult to 
determine or keep in art as in religion, but the great dan- 
ger is on the side of superstition. He who walks humbly 
with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing sight of Art. 
Ho will commonly find in all that is truly great of man's 
works, something of their original, for which he will regard 
them with gratitude, and sometimes follow them with respect ; 
while he who takes Art for his authority' may entirely lose 
sight of all that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin 
of an idolater, and the degradation of a slave. 



SANCTIFICATIO^S". 

All the divisions of humanity are noble or brutal, immortal 
or mortal, according to the degree of their sanctification ; 
and there is no part of the man which is not immortal and 
divine when it is once given to God, and no part of him which 
is not mortal by the second death, and brutal before the first, 
when it is withdrawn from God. For to ^vhat shall we trust 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 119 

for our distinction from the beasts that perish ? To our 
higher intellect ? — yet are we not bidden to be wise as the 
serpent, and to consider the ways of the ant ? — or to our 
affections ? nay ; these are more shared by the lower animals 
than our intelligence. Hamlet leaps into the grave of his 
beloved, and leaves it, — a dog had stayed. Humanity and 
immortality consist neither in reason, nor in love ; not in the 
body, nor in the animation of the heart of it, nor in the 
thoughts and stirrings of the brain of it, — but in the dedica- 
tion of them all to Him who will raise them up at the last 
day. 



HOW TO LIVE. 

It surely is a subject for serious thought, whether it might 
not be better for many of us, if, on attaining a certain posi- 
tion in life, we determined, with God's jiermission, to choose 
a home in which to live and die, — a home not to be increased 
by adding stone to stone and field to field, but which, being 
enough for all our wishes at that period, we should resolve 
to be satisfied with for ever. Consider this ; and also, 
whether we ought not to be more in the habit of seeking 
honour from our descendants than our ancestors; thinking it 
better to be nobly remembered than nobly born ; and striv- 
ing so to live, that our sons, and onr sons' sons, for ages to 
come, might still lead their children reverently to the doors 
(Hit of which we had been cariied to the grave, saying, 
" Look : This was his house : This was his chamber." 



l20 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



man's nature. 



ISTow the basest thoiight possible concerning man is, tliat he 
has no spiritual nature ; and the foolishest misunderstanding 
of him possible is, that he has or should have, no animal 
nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual — 
coherently and irrevocably so ; neither part of it may, but at 
its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other. 



SELF-GOVERISrMENT. 



There are more people who can forget themselves than 
govern themselves. ~~ 



CANDID SEEING. 

Some years ago, as I was talking of the curvilinear forms 
in a piece of rock to one of our academicians, he said to me, 
in a S(3mewhat despondent accent, " If you look for curves, 
you will see curves ; if you look for angles, you will see 
angles." 

The saying appeared to me an infinitely sad one. It was 
the utterance of an experienced man ; and in many ways 
true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most 
singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of per- 
suading itself to see whatever it chooses ; — a great gift, if 
directed to the discernment of the things needful and perti- 
nent to its own work and being; a great weakness, if directed 
to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 121 

thinofs throuo'hoiit the world, the men who look for the 
crooked will see the crooked, and the men who look for the 
straight will see the straight. But yet the saying was a nota- 
bly sad one *; for it came of the conviction in the speaker's 
mind that there was in reality no crooked and no straight ; 
that all so-called discernment was fancy, and that men might, 
with equal rectitude of judgment, and good-deserving of 
their fellow-men, perceive and paint whatever was convenient 
to them. 

Whereas things may always be seen truly by candid people, 
though never completely. No human capacity ever yet saw 
the whole of a thing ; but we may see more and more of it 
the longer we look. Every individual temper will see some- 
thing diflerent in it : but supposing the tempers honest, all 
the differences are there. Every advance in our acuteness of 
perception will show us something new ; but the old and first 
discerned thing will still be there, not falsified, only modified 
and enriched by the new perceptions, becoming continually 
more beautiful in its harmony with them and more approved 
as a part of the Infinite truth. 



INTEMPERANCE. 

Men are held intemperate (axoXaa'roi) only when their 
desires overcome or prevent the action of their reason, and 
they are indeed intemperate in the exact degree in which 
sucb prevention or interference takes place, and so are actu- 
ally axoXatfroj, in many instances, and with respect to many 
resolves, which lower not the world's estimation of their tem- 
perance. But when it is palpal)ly evident that the reason 
cannot have erred, but that its voice has been deadened or 

6 



122 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

disobeyed, and that the reasonable creature has been dragged 
dead round the walls of his own citadel by mere passion and 
impulse, — then, and then only, men are of all held intempe- 
rate. And this is evidently the case with respect to inordinate 
indulgence in pleasures of touch and taste, for these, being 
destructive in their continuance not only of all other pleasures, 
hut of the very sensibilities by which they themselves are 
received, and as this penalty is actually known and experi- 
enced by those indulging in them, so that the reason cannot 
but pronounce right respecting their perilousness, there is no 
palHation of the wrong choice ; and the man, as utterly inca- 
pable of will, is called intemperate, or axoXaffrog. 

It would be well if the reader would for himself follow out 
this subject, which it would be irrelevant here to 23ursue 
farther, observing how a certain degree of intemperance is 
suspected and attributed to men with respect to higher 
impulses ; as, for instance, in the case of anger, or any other 
passion criminally indulged, and yet is not so attributed, as 
in the case of sensvial pleasures ; because in anger the reason 
is supposed not to have had time to operate, and to be itself 
affected by the presence of the passion, which seizes the man 
involuntarily and before he is aware ; whereas, in the case of 
the sensual pleasures, the act is deliberate, and determined 
on beforehand, in direct defiance of reason. Nevertheless, 
if no precaution be taken against immoderate anger, and the 
passions gain upon the man, so as to be evidently wilful and 
unrestrained, and admitted contrary to all reason, we begm 
to look upon him as, in the real sense of the word, intempe- 
rate, or dx6Xa(fTog, and assign to him, in consequence, his place 
among the beasts, as definitely as if he liad yielded to the 
pleasurable temptations of touch or taste. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 123 



THE 19th psalm. 



Take np the 19th Psalm aiirl look at it verse by verse. 
Perhnps to my younger readers one word may be permitted 
respecting their Bible-reading in general. The Bible is, in- 
deed, a deep book, when depth is required ; that is to say, 
for deep people ! But it is not intended, particularly, for 
profound persons ; on the contrary, much more for shallow 
and simple persons. And therefore the first, and generally 
the main and leading idea of the Bible, is on its surface, 
written in plainest possible Greek, Hebrew, or English, need- 
ing no penetration, nor amplification, needing nothing but 
what we all might give — attention. 

But this, w^hich is in every one's power, and is the only 
thing that God wants, is just the last thing any one will give 
Him. 

We are delighted to ramble away into day-dreams, to 
repeat j)et verses from other places, suggested by chance 
words ; to snap at an expression which suits our own particu- 
lar views, or to dig up a meaning from under a verse, which 
we should be amiably grieved to think any human being had 
been so happy as to find before. But the plain, intended, 
immediate, fruitful meaning, which every one ought to find 
always, and especially that w^hich depends on our seeing the 
relation of the verse to those near it, and getting the force of 
the whole passage, in due relation — this sort of significance 
we do not look for ; — it being, truly, not to be discovered, 
unless we really attend to what is said, instead of to our own 
feelings. 

It is unfortunate also, but very certain, that in order to 
attend to what is said, we must go through the irksomeness 
of knowing the meaning of the words. And the first thing 
that children should be taught about their Bibles is, to distiu- 



124 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

gnisli clearly between words that they understand and words 
that they do not ; and to put aside the words they do not 
understand, and verses connected' with them, to be asked 
about, or for a future time ; and never to think they are 
reading the Bible when they are merely repeating phrases of 
an unknown tongue. 

Let us try, by way of example, this 19th Psalm, and see 
what plain meaning is uppermost in it. 

" The heavens declare the glory of God." 

What are the heavens ? 

The word occurring in the Lord's Prayer, and the thing 
expressed being what a child may, with some advantage, be 
led to look at, it might be supposed among a schoolmaster's 
first duties to explain this word clearly. 

Xow there can be no question that in the minds of the 
sacred wi'iters, it stood naturally for the entire system of 
cloud, and of space beyond it, conceived by them as a vault 
set with stars. But there can, also, be no question, as we 
saw in previous inquiry, that the firmament, which is said to 
have been " called " heaven, at the creation, expresses, in all 
definite use of the word, the system of clouds, as spreading 
the power of the water over the earth ; hence the constant 
expressions dew of heaven, rain of heaven, etc., where heaven 
is used in the singular ; while the " heavens," w^hen used plu- 
rally, and especially when in distinction as here, from the word 
" firmament," remained expressive of the starry space beyond. 

But whatever different nations had called them, at least I 
would make it clear to the child's mind that in this 19th 
Psr.lm, thoir whole power being intended, the two words are 
used which express it : the Heavens, for the great vault or 
void, with all its planets, and stars, and ceaseless march of 
orbs innumerable ; and the Firmament, for the ordinance of 
the clouds. 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 125 

These heavens, then, declare " the glory of God ;" that is, 
the Hght of God, the eternal glory, stable and changeless. 
As their orbs fail not, but pursue their course for ever to give 
light upon the earth — so God's glory surrounds man for ever 
— changeless, in its fuhiess insupportable — infinite. 

" And the firmament showeth his handiworhP The clouds, 
prepared by the hands of God for the help of man, varied in 
their ministration — veiling the inner splendour — show, not 
His eternal glory, but His daily handiwork. So He dealt 
with Moses. I will cover thee " with my hand " as I pass by. 
Comj^are Job xxxvi. 24. 

" Remember that thou magnify His work, which men be- 
hold. Every man may see it." Xot so the glory — that only 
in part ; the courses of these stars are to be seen imperfectly, 
and but by a few. But this firmament, every man may see 
it ; man mny behold it " afar off." " Behold, God is great, and 
we know him not. For he maketh small the drops of water : 
they pour down rain according to the vapor thereof." 

"Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night 
sheweth knowledge. They have no speech nor language, 
yet without these their voice is heard. Their rule is gone out 
throughout the earth, and their words to the end of the 
world." V 

Note that. Their rule throughout the earth, whether 
inhabited or not — their law of right is thereon ; but their 
words, spoken to human souls, to the end of the inhabited 
world. 

" In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun," etc. 
Literally, a tabernacle, or curtained tent, with its veil and 
its hangings ; also of the colours of His desert tabernacle — 
blue, and purple, and scarlet. 

Thus far the Psalm describes the manner of tliis great hea- 
ven's message. 



126 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Thenceforward, it comes to the matter of it. 

Observe, you have the two divisions of the declaration. 
The heavens (compare Psalm viii.) declare the eternal glory 
of God before men, and the iirraximent the daily mercy of 
God towards men. And the eternal glory is in this — that 
the law of the Lord is perfect, and His testimony sure, and 
His statutes right. 

And the daily mercy in this — that the commandment of 
the Lord is pure, and His fear is clean, and His judgments 
true and righteous. 

There are three oppositions : — 

Between law and commandment. 

Between testimony and fear. 

Between statute and judgment. 

L Between law and commandment. 

The law is fixed and everlasting ; uttered once, abiding 
for ever, as the sun, it may not be moved. It is "perfect, 
converting the soul :" the whole question about the soul 
being, whether it has been turned from darkness to light, 
acknowledged this law or not, — whether it is godly or un- 
godly ? But the commandment is given momentarily to each 
man, according to the need. It does not convert : it guides. 
It does not concern the entire purpose of the soul ; but it 
enlightens the eyes, respecting a special act. The law is, 
" Do this always ;" the conmiandment, " Do thou this now .*" 
often mysterious enough, and through the cloud ; chilling, 
and with strange rain of tears ; yet always pure (the law con- 
verting, but the commandment cleansing) : a rod not for 
guiding merely, but for strengthening, and tasting honey 
with. " Look how mine eyes have been enlightened, because 
I tasted a little of this honey." 

II. Between testimony and fear. 

The testimony is everlasting : the true promise of salvation. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 127 

Bright as the sun beyond all the earth-cloud, it makes wise 
tlie simple; all wisdom being assured in perceiving it and 
trusting it ; all wisdom brought to nothing which does not 
perceive it. 

But tlie fear of God is taught through special encourage- 
ment and special withdrawal of it, according to each man's 
need — by the earth-cloud — smile and frown alternately : it 
also, as the commandment, is clean, purging and casting out 
all other fear, it only remaining for ever. 

III. Between statute and judgment. 

The statutes are the appointments of the Eternal justice : 
fixed and bright, and constant as the stars ; equal and 
balanced as their courses. They " are right, rejoicing the 
heart." But the judgments are special judgments of given 
acts of men. '* True," that is to say, fulfilling the warning 
or promise given to each man ; " righteous altogether," that 
is, done or executed in truth and righteousness. The statute 
is right, in appointment. The judgment righteous altogether, 
in appointment and fulfilment ; — yet not always rejoicing the 
heart. 

Then, respecting all these, comes the expression of pas- 
sionate desire, and of joy ; that also divided with respect to 
each. The glory of God, eternal in the Heavens, is future, 
" to be desired more than gold, than much fine gold " — trea- 
sure in the heavens that fiiileth not. But the present guid- 
ance and teaching of God are on earth ; they are now pos- 
sessed, sweeter than all earthly food — " sweeter than honey 
and the honeycomb. Moreover by them" (the law and the 
testimony) "is Thy servant warned" — warned of the ways 
of death and life. 

" And in keeping them " (the commandments and the judg- 
ments) " there is great reward ;" pain now and bitterness of 
tears, but rew^ard unspeakable. 



128 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Thus far the Psalm has been descriptive and interpreting. 
It ends ill prayer. 

"Who can understand his errors?" (wanderings from the 
perfect law.) " Cleanse thou me from secret faults ; from all 
that T have done against Thy will, and far from Thy way in 
the darkness. Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous 
sins" (sins against the commandment) "against Thy will 
when it is seen and direct, pleading with heart and con- 
science. So shall I be undefiled and innocent from the great 
transgression, — the transgression that crucifies afresh. 

"Let the words of my mouth (for I have set them to 
declare Thy law), and the meditation of my heart (for 1 have 
set it to keep Thy commandments), be acceptable in Thy 
sight, whose glory is my strength, and Avhose work my 
redemption ; ray Strength and my Redeemer." 



SEEKING FOR FACTS. 

He who habituates himself, in his daily life, to seek for the 
stern facts in w^hatever he hears or sees, will have these facts 
again brought before him by the involuntary imaginative 
power in their noblest associations; and he who seeks for 
frivolities and fallacies, will have frivolities and fallacies again 
presented to him in his dreams. Thus if, in reading history 
for the purpose of painting from it, the painter severely 
seeks for the accurate circumstances of every event ; as, for 
instance, determining the exact spot of ground on which his 
hero fell, the way he must have been looking at the moment, 
the height the sun was at (by the hour of the day), and the 
way in which the light must have fallen upon his face, the 
actual number and individuality of the persons by him at the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



129 



moment, and such other veritable details, ascertaining and 
dwelling upon them without the slightest care for any desira- 
bleness or poetic propriety in them, but for their own truth's 
sake ; then these truths will afterwards rise up and form the 
body of his imaginative vision, perfected and united as his 
inspiration raxiy teach. But if, in reading the history, he does 
not regard these facts, but thinks only how it might all most 
prettily, and properly, and impressively have happened, then 
there is nothing but prettiness and propriety to form the body 
of his future imagination, and his whole ideal becomes false. 
So in the higher or expressive part of the work, the whole 
virtue of it depends on his being able to quit his own person- 
ality, and enter successively into the hearts and thoughts of 
each person ; and in all this he is still passive : in gathering 
the truth he is passive, not determining what the truth to be 
gathered shall be ; and in the after vision he is passive, not 
determining, but as his dreams will have it, what the truth to 
be represented shall be ; only according to his own nobleness 
is his power of entering into the hearts of noble persons, and 
the general character of his dream of them. 



JUSTICE TO THE LIVING. 

It would be well for us if we could quit our habit of think- 
ing that what we say of the dead is of more weight than 
what we say of the living. The dead either know nothing, 
or know enough to despise both us antl our insults, or adu- 
lation. 

" Well, but," it is answered, " there will always be this 
weakness in our human nature ; we shall for ever, in spite of 
reason, take pleasure in doing funereal honour to the corpse, 

6* 



130 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

and writing sacredness to memory upon marble." Then, if 
you are to do this, — if you are to put off your kindness until 
<Jeath, — why not, in God's name, put off also your enmity? 
and if you choose to write your lingering affections upon 
stones, wreak also your delayed anger upon clay. This would 
be just, and, in the last case, little as you think it, generous. 
The true baseness is in the bitter reverse — the strange iniquity 
of our folly. Is a man to be praised, honored, pleaded for? 
It might do harm to praise or plead for him while he lived. 
Wait till he is dead. Is he to be maligned, dishonored, and 
discomforted ? See that you do it while he is alive. It would 
be too ungenerous to slander him when he could feel malice 
no more ; too contemptible to try to hurt him when he was 
past anguish. Make yourselves busy, ye unjust, ye lying, ye 
hungry for pain ! Death is near. This is your hour, and the 
power of darkness. Wait, ye just, ye merciful, ye faithful in 
love ! Wait but for a little while, for this is not your rest. 



THE DEFENDERS OF THE DEAD. 

" Is it not, indeed, ungenerous to speak ill of the dead, 
since they cannot defend themselves ? " 

Why should they ? If you speak ill of them falsely, it con- 
cerns you, not them. Those lies of thine will " hurt a man 
as thou art," assuredly they w^ill hurt thyself; but that clay, 
or the delivered soul of it, in no wise. Ajacean shield, seven- 
folded, never stayed lance-thrust as that turf wdll, with daisies 
pied. What you say of those quiet ones is wholly and 
utterly the world's affair and yours. The lie will, indeed, 
cost its proper price, and work its appointed work ; you may 
ruin living myriads by it, — you may stop the progress of cen- 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 131 

turies by it, — you may have to pay your own soul for it, — 
but as for ruffling one corner of the folded shroud by it, 
think it not. The dead have none to defend them ! Nay, 
they have two defenders, strong enough for the need — God, 
and tKe worm. 



RIGHT GENERxVLIZATIO:N'. 

To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth ; 
in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid matter ; 
in all trees, nothing but similar accumulations of leaves, is no 
sign of high feeling or extended thought. The more we 
know, and the more we feel, the more we separate ; we sepa- 
rate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts 
of the peasant, lie as they do on his field, one is like another, 
and there is no connexion between any of them. The geolo- 
gist distinguishes, and in distinguishing connects them. 
Each becomes difierent from its fellow, but in differing from, 
assumes a relation to its fellow ; they are no more each the 
repetition of the other, — they are parts of a system, and each 
implies and is connected with the existence of the rest. That 
generalization then is right, true, and noble, Avhich is based 
on the knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the 
relations of individual kinds. That generalization is wrong, 
false, and contemptible, which is based on ignorance of the 
one, and disturbance of the other. It is indeed no general- 
ization, but confusion and chaos ; it is ttie generalization of a 
defeated army into indistinguishable impotence — the general- 
ization of the elements of a dead carcass into dust. 



132 PKEdOUS THOUGHTS. 



THE FOEMATIYE PERIOD. 



The common j^lea that anything does to " exercise the mind 
upon," is an utterly false one. The human soul, in youth, is 
7iot a machine of which you can polish the cogs with any kelp 
or briekdust near at hand ; and, having got it into working 
order, and good, empty, and oiled serviceableness, start your 
immortal locomotive at twenty-five years old or thirty, 
express from the Strait Gate, on the Narrow Road. The 
whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, edifica- 
tion, instruction, I use the words with their weight in them ; 
intaking of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes, and 
faiths. There is not an hour of it but is trembling with des- 
tinies, — not a moment of which, once past, the appointed 
work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck 
on the cold iron. Take your vase of Venice glass out of the 
furnace, and strew chaff over it in its transparent heat, and 
recover that to its clearness and rubied glory when the north 
wind has blown upon it ; but do not think to strew chaff 
over the child fresh from God's presence, and to bring the 
heavenly colours back to him — at least in this world. 



MAKING A KIGHT CHOICE. 

A single knot of quartz occurring in a flake of slate at the 
crest of the ridge may alter the entire destinies of the moun- 
tain form. It may turn the little rivulet of Avater to the 
rio-ht or left, and that little turn will be to the future direction 
of the gathering stream w^hat the touch of a finger on the 
barrel of a rifle would be to the direction of a bullet. Each 
succeeding year increases the importance of every deter- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 133 

mined form, and arranges in masses yet more and more har- 
monions, the promontories shaped by the sweeping of the 
eternal waterfalls. 

The importance of the results thus obtained by the slight- 
est change of direction in the infent streamlets, iiirnishes an 
interesting type of the formation of human characters by 
habit. Every one of those notable ravines and crags is the 
expression, not of any sudden violence done to the mountain, 
but of its little habits, persisted in continually. It was 
created with one ruling instinct ; but its destiny depended 
nevertheless, for effective result, on the direction of the small 
and all but invisible tricklings of water, in which the first 
shower of rain found its way down its sides. The feeblest, 
most insensible oozings of the drops of clew among its dust 
were in reality arbiters of its eternal form; commissioned, 
with a touch more tender than that of a child's finger, — as 
silent and slight as the fall of a half-checked tear on a 
maiden's cheek, — to fix for ever the forms of peak and preci- 
pice, and hew those leagues of lifted granite into the shapes 
that were to divide the earth and its kingdoms. Once the 
little stone evaded, — once the dim furrow traced, — and the 
peak was for ever invested with its majesty, the ravine for 
ever doomed to its degradation. Thenceforward, day by day, 
the subtle habit gained in power ; the evaded stone was left 
with wider basement ; the chosen furrow deepened with 
swifter-sliding wave ; repentance and arrest were alike impos- 
sible, and hour after hour saw written in larger and rockier 
characters upon the sky, the history of the choice that had 
been directed by a drop of rain, and of the balance that had 
been turned by a grain of sand. 



134 PRECIOUS Til OUGHTS. 



GOOD TEACHING. 



If we have the power of teaching the right to anybody, 
we should teach them the right ; if we have the power of 
showing them the best thing, we shoukl show them the be:st 
thing; there will always, I fear, be enough want of teaching, 
and enough bad teaching, to bring out very curious erratical 
results if we want them. So, if we are to teach at all, let us 
teach the right thing, and ever the right thing. There are 
many attractive qualities inconsistent with rightness; — do not 
let us teach them, — let us be content to waive them. There 
are attractive qualities in Burns, and attractive qualities in 
Dickens, which neither of those writers would have possessed 
if the one had been educated, and the other had been study- 
ing higher nature than that of cockney London ; but those 
attractive qualities are not such as we should seek in a school 
of literature. If we want to teach young men a good man- 
ner of writing, we should teach it from Shakspeare, — not 
from Burns ; from Walter Scott, — and not from Dickens. 



SERIOUSNESS AND LEVITY. 

There is no essential reason, because we live after the fatal 
seventeenth century, that we should never again be able to 
confess interest in sculpture, or see brightness in embroidery ; 
nor, because now we choose to make the night deadly with 
our pleasures, and the day with our labours, prolonging the 
dance till dawn, and the toil to twilight, that we should never 
again learn how rightly to employ the sacred trusts of strength, 
beauty, and time. Whatever external charm attaches itself 
to the past, w^ould then be seen in proper subordination to the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 135 

brightness of present life ; and the elements of romance 
wonld exist, in the earlier ages, only in the attraction which 
must generally belong to whatever is unflimiliar; in the reve- 
rence which a noble nation always pays to its ancestors ; and 
in the enchanted light which races, like individuals, mus^t 
perceive in looking back to the days of their childhood. 

Again : the peculiar levity with which natural scenery is 
regarded by a large number of modern minds cannot be con- 
sidered as entirely characteristic of the age, inasmuch as it 
never can belong to its greatest intellects. Men of any high 
mental powder must be serious, w^hether in ancient or modern 
days : a certain degree of reverence for fiir scenery is found 
in all our great writers without exception, — even the one who 
has made us laugh oftenest, taking us to the valley of Cha- 
mouni, and to the sea beach, there to give peace after suffer- 
ing, and change revenge into pity. It is only the dull, the 
uneducated, or the Avorldly, whom it is painful to meet on 
the hill sides ; and levity, as a ruling character, cannot be 
ascribed to the whole nation, but only to its holiday-making 
apprentices, and its House of Commons. 



THE ALPINE PEASANT. 

A slight incident which happened to myself, is singularly 
illustrative of the v<?hgious character of the Alpine peasant 
w^hcn under favourable circumstances of teaching. I was 
coming down one evening from the Rochers de Naye, above 
Montreux, having been at work among the limestone rocks, 
where I could get no water, and both weary and thirsty. 
Coming to a spring at a turn of the path, conducted, as usual, 
by the herdsmen into a hollowed pine-trunk, I stooped to it 



136 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

and drank deeply: as I raised my head, drawing breath 
heavily, some one behind me said, " Celui qui boira de cette 
eau-ci, aura encore soif." I turned, not understanding 
for the moment what was meant ; and saw one of the hill- 
peasants, probably returning to his chalet from the market- 
place at Yevay or Yilleneuve. -As I looked at him with an 
uncomprehending expression, he went on with the versC : — 
" Mais celui qui boira de I'eau que je lui donnerai, n'aura 
jamais soif." 

I doubt if this would have been thought of, or said, by 
even the most intelligent lowland peasant. The thought 
might have occurred to him, but the frankness of address, 
and expectation of being at once understood without a word 
of preparative explanation, as if the language of the Bible 
were familiar to all men, mark, I think, the mountaineer. 



TOWEES OP ROCK. 

I can hardly conceive any one standing face to face with 
one of these towers of central rock, and yet not also asking 
himself. Is this indeed the actual first work of the Divine 
Master on which I gaze ? Was the great precipice shaped by 
His finger, as Adam was shaped out of the dust ? Were its 
clefts and ledges carved ujDon it by its Creator, as the letters 
were on the Tables of the Law, and was it thus left to bear 
its eternal testimony to His beneficence among these clouds 
of heaven ? Or is it the descendant of a long race of moun- 
tains, existing under appointed laws of birth and endurance, 
death and decrepitude? 

There can be no doubt as to the answer. The rock itself 
answers audibly by the murmur of some falling stone or 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. I3l 

rending pinnacle. It is not as it was once. Those waste 
leagues aroimd its feet are loaded with the wrecks of what it 
was. On these, perhaps, of all mountains, the characters of 
decay are written most clearly ; around these are spread most 
gloomily the memorials of their pride, and the signs of their 
humiliation. 

"What then were they onc^e ?" 

The only answer is yet again, — "Behold the cloud." 

Their form, as far as human vision can trace it, is one of 
eternal decay. No retrospection can raise them out of their 
ruins, or withdraw them beyond the law of their perpetual 
fate. Existing science may be challenged to form, with the 
faintest colour of probability, any conception of the original 
aspect of a crystalline mountain : it cannot be followed in its 
elevation, nor traced in its connection with its fellows. No 
eyes ever " saw its substance, yet being imperfect ;" its his- 
tory is a monotone of endurance and destruction : all that we 
can certainly know of it, is that it was once greater than it 
is now, and it only gathers vastness, and still gathers, as it 
fides into the abyss of the unknown. 

Yet this one piece of certain evidence ought not to be 
altogether unpursued ; and while with all humility we shrink 
from endeavouring to theorize respecting processes which are 
concealed, we ought not to refuse to follow, as far as it will 
lead us, the course of thought which seems marked out by 
conspicuous and consistent phenomena. 



LOVE OF CHANGE. 



In subjects of the intellect, the chief delight they convey is 
dependent upon their being newly and vividly comprehended, 



138 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

and as they become subjects of contemplation they lose their 
value, and become tasteless and unregarded, except as instru- 
ments for the reaching of others, only that though they sink 
down into the shadowy, effectless, heap of things indifferent, 
which we pack, and crush down, and stand upon, to reach 
things new, they spai'kle afresh at intervals as we stir them 
by throwing a new stone into the heap, and letting the newly 
admitted lights play upon thorn. And both in subjects of the 
intellect and the senses it is to be remembered, that the love 
of change is a weakness and imperfection of our nature, and 
implies in it the state of probation, and that it is to teach us 
that things about us here are not meant for our continual 
possession or satisfaction, that ever such passion of change 
was put in us as that " custom lies upon us with a weight, 
heavy as frost, and deep almost as life," and only such weak 
back and baby grasp given to our intellect as that " the best 
things we do are painful, and the exei-cise of them grievous, 
being continued without intermission, so as in those very 
actions whereby we are especially perfected in this life we are 
not able to persist." And so it will be found that they are 
the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most 
love variety and change, for the weakest-minded are those 
Avho both wonder most at things new, and digest worst things 
old, in so far that everything they have lies rusty, and loses 
lustre for want of use ; neither do they make any stir among 
their possessions, nor look over them to see what may be 
made of them, nor keep any great store, nor are householders 
with storehouses of things new and old, but they catch at the 
new-fashioned garments, and let the moth and thief look 
after the rest ; and the hardest-hearted men are those that 
least feel the endearing and binding power of custom, and 
hold on by no cords of affection to any shore, but drive with 
the waves that cast up mire and dirt. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 139 

IMAGINATION. 

We all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, 
and of its woik with our hands and in our hearts: we under- 
stand it, I suppose, as the imaging or picturing of new things 
in our thoughts ; and we always show an involuntary respect 
for this power, wherever we can recognise it, acknowledging 
it to be a greater power than manipulation, or calculation, or 
observation, or any other human faculty. If we see an old 
woman spinning at the fireside, and distributing her thread 
dexterously from the distaff, Ave respect her for her manipula- 
tion—if we ask her how much she expects to make in a year, 
and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calculation — 
if she is watching at the same time that none of her grand- 
children fall into the fire, we resj^ect her for her observation 
— yet for all this she may still be a commonplace old Avoman 
enough. But if she is all the time telling her grandchildren 
a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her for her imagination, 
and say, she must be a rather remarkable old woman. 



SIR JOS'HUA REYNOLDS. 

Do you recollect the evidence respecting the character of 
this man, — the two points of bright peculiar evidence given 
by the sayings of the two greatest literary men of his day, 
Johnson and Goldsmith ? Johnson, who, as you know, was 
always Reynolds' attached friend, had but one complaint to 
make against him, that he hated nobody : — " Reynolds," he 
said, "you hate no one living; I like a good hater!" Still 
more significant is the little touch in Goldsmith's " Retalia- 
tion." You recollect how in that poem he describes the vari- 



140 PIIECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ous persons wlio met at one of their dinners at St. James's 
Coffee-house, each person being described under the name of 
some appropriate dish. You will often hear the concluding 
lines about Reynolds quoted — 

" He shifted his trumpet," &g. ; — 

less often, or at least less attentively, the preceding ones, far 
more important — 

'' Still born to improve us in every part — 
His pencil our faces, hi^ manners our heart /' 

and never, the most characteristic touch of all, near the 
beo-innino; : — 

" Our dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains ; 
Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains; 
To make out the dinner, fuU certain I am. 
That Rich is anchovy, and Eeynolds is lamhJ' 



THE THIIsTKER AND THE PERCEIVER. 

He who, having journeyed all day beside the Leman Lake, 
asked of Ins companions, at evening, where it was,* probably 
was not wanting in sensibility; but he was generally a 
thinker, not a perceiver. And this instance is only an extreme 
one of the effect which, in all cases, knowledge, becoming a 
subject of reflection, produces upon the sensitive faculties. 
It must be but poor and lifeless knowledge, if it has no ten- 
dency to force itself forward, and become ground for reflec- 
tion, in despite of the succession of external objects. It will 

* St. Bernard. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 141 

not obey their succession. The first tliat comes gives it food 
enough for its clay's work ; it is its Imbit, its duty, to cast 
the rest aside, and fasten upon that. The first thing that a 
thinking and knowing man sees in the course of the day, he 
will not easily quit. It is not his way to quit anything with- 
out getting to the bottom of it, if possible. But the artist is 
bound to receive all things on the broad, white, lucid field of 
his soul, not to grasp at one. For instance, as the knowing 
and thinking man watches the sunrise, he sees something in 
the colour of a ray, or the change of a cloud, that is new to 
him ; and this he follows out forthwith into a labyrinth of 
optical and pneumatical laws, perceiving no more clouds nor 
rays all the morning. But the painter must catch all the 
rays, all the colours that come, and see them all truly, all in 
their real relations and succession ; therefore, everything that 
occupies room in his mind he must cast aside for the time, as 
completely as may be. The thoughtful man is gone far away 
to seek ; but the perceiving man must sit still, and open his 
heart to receive. The thoughtful man is knitting and sharp- 
ening himself into a two-edged sword, wherewith to pierce. 
The perceiving man is stretching himself into a four-cornered 
sheet wherewith to catch. And all the breadth to which he 
can expand himself, and all the white emptiness into which 
he can blanch himself, will not give him the intelhgence God 
has to give him. 



A nation's place in history. 

A nation may produce a great effect, and take up a high 
place in the world's history, by the temporary enthusiasm or 
fury of its multitudes, without being truly great ; or, on the 



142 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Other hand, the discipline of morality and common sense may- 
extend its physical power or exalt its well-being, while yet 
its creative and imaginative powers are continually diminish- 
ing. And again : a people may take so definite a lead over 
all the rest of the world in one direction, as to obtain a 
respect which is not justly due to them if judged on universal 
grounds. Thus the Greeks perfected the sculpture of the 
human body ; threw their literature into a disciplined form, 
which has given it a peculiar power over certain conditions 
of modern mind ; and were the most carefully educated race 
that the world has seen ; but a few years hence, I believe, 
w^e shall no longer think them a greater people than either 
the Egyptians or Assyrians. 



TREES AND COMMUNITIES. 

There is a strange coincidence between trees and commu- 
nities of men. When the community is small, people fall 
more easily into their places, and take, each in his place, a 
firmer standing than can be obtained by the individuals of a 
great nation. The members of a vast community are sepa- 
rately weaker, as an aspen or elm leaf is thin, tremulous, and 
directionless, compared with the spear-like setting and firm 
substance of a rhododendron or laurel leaf The laurel and 
rhododendron are like the Athenian or Florentine republics ; 
the aspen like England — strong-trunked enough when put to 
proof, and very good for making cartwheels of, but shaking 
pale with epidemic panic at every breeze. ISTevertheless, the 
aspen has the better of the great nation, in that if you take 
it bough by bough, you shall find the gentle law of respect 
and room for each other truly observed by the leaves in such 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 143 

broken way as they can manage it ; but in the nation you 
find every one scrambling for his neighbour's place. 



THE PURIST AND THE SENSUALIST. 

In saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature 
has minolino' in it of <iood and evil, I do not mean that nature 

Coo ' 

is conceivably improvable, or that anything that God has 
made could be called evil, if we could see far enough into its 
uses, but that, with respect to immediate effects or appear- 
ances, it may be so, just as the hard rind or bitter kernel of 
a fruit may be an evil to the eater, though in the one is the 
protection of the fruit, and in the other its continuance. The 
Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but receives from 
nature and from God that which is good for him ; while the 
Sensualist fills himself " with the husks that the swine did 
eat." 

The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reap- 
ing wheat, of which the Purists take the fine flour, and the 
Sensualists the chaff and straw, but the Naturalists take all 
home, and make their cake of the one, and their couch of the 
other. 

For instance. We know more certainly every day that 
whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some 
beneficent or necessary operation ; that the storm which 
destroys a harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet 
unsown, and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a 
thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the time 
less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary ; and 
we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the 
spirit which would withdraw itself from the presence of 



144 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which 
the peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not 
darken nor the sea rage, in w^hich the leaf should not change 
nor the blossom wither. That man is greater, however, who 
contemplates w^ith an equal mind the alternations of terror 
and of beauty ; who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny 
sky, can bear also to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on 
the horizon ; and, not less sensible to the blessing of the 
peace of nature, can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordi- 
nances by which that peace is protected and secured. But 
separated from both by an immeasurable distance would be 
the man who delighted in convulsion and disease for their 
own sake : who found his daily food in the disorder of nature 
mingled with the suffering of humanity ; and w^atched joy- 
fully at the right hand of the Angel whose appointed work 
is to destroy as well as to accuse, while the corners of the 
House of feasting were struck by the wdnd from the wilder- 
ness. 

And far more is this true, when the subject of contempla- 
tion is humanity itself The passions of mankind are partly 
2)rotective, partly beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the 
corn ; but none without their use, none w^ithout nobleness 
when seen in balanced unity with the rest of the spirit which 
they are charged to defend. The passions of which the end 
is the continuance of the race ; the indignation which is to 
arm it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton 
injury ; and the fear * which lies at the root of prudence, 
reverence, and awe, are all honourable and beautiful, so long 
as man is regarded in his relations to the existing world. 
The religious Puiist, striving to conceive him withdrawn from 
those relations, effaces from the countenance the traces of all 

* Not selfish, fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of resolution in 
the soul. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 145 

transitory passion, illnmines it with holy hope and love, and 
seals it with the serenity of heavenly peace ; he conceals the 
forms of the body by the deep-folded garment, or else repre- 
sents them under severely chastened types, and would rather 
paint them emaciated by the fast, or pale from the torture, 
than strengthened by exertion, or flushed by emotion. But 
the great Naturalist takes the human being in its wholeness, 
in its mortal as well as its spiritual strength. Capable of 
sounding and sympathizuig with the whole range of its pas- 
sions, he brings one majestic harmony out of them all; he 
represents it fearlessly in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, 
its anger, its sensuality, and its pride, as well as in its forti- 
tude or faith," but makes it noble in them all ; he casts aside 
the veil from the body, and beholds the mysteries of its form 
like an angel looking down on an inferior creature ; there is 
nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that he is 
ashamed to confess ; w^th all that lives, triumphing, falling, 
or suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, 
yet standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deep- 
ness of his sympathy ; for the spirit within him is too thought- 
ful to be grieved, too brave to be appalled, and too pure to 
be polluted. 

How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we place, in 
the scale of being, those whose pleasure is only in sin or in 
suffenng ; who habitually contemplate humanity in poverty 
or decrepitude, fury or sensuality ; whose works are either 
temptations to its weakness, or triumphs over its ruin, and 
recognize no other subjects for thought or admiration than 
the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy 
of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely 
stated, that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little 
what gaps and blanks would disfigure our gallery and cham- 
ber walls, in places that we have long approached with reve- 



146 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

rence, if every picture, every statue, were removed from 
them, of which the subject was either the vice or the misery 
of mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose : consider 
the innumerable groups having reference merely to various 
forms of passion, low or high ; drunken revels and brawls 
among peasants, gambling or lighting scenes among soldiers, 
amours and intrigues among every class, brutal battle-pieces, 
banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in famine, wreck, 
or slaughter, for the sake merely of the excitement, — that 
quickening and suppling of the dull spirit that cannot be 
gained for it but by bathing it in blood, afterward to whither 
back into stained and stiffened apathy ; and then that whole 
vast false heaven of sensual passion, full of nynij)hs, satyrs, 
graces, goddesses, and I know not w^hat, from its high sev- 
enth circle in Correggio's Antiope, down to the Grecized 
ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of the Parisian uphol- 
sterer. Sweep away all this, remorselessly, and see how 
much art we should have left. 

And yet these are only the grossest manifestations of the 
tendency of the school. There are subtler, yet not less cer- 
tain, signs of it in the works of men who stand high in the 
world's list of sacred painters. I doubt not that the reader 
was surprised when I named Murillo among the men of this 
third rank. Yet, go into the Dulwich Gallery, and meditate 
for a little over that much celebrated picture of the two 
beggar boys, one eating lying on the ground, the other stand- 
ing beside him. We have among our own painters one who 
cannot indeed be set beside Murillo as a painter of Madon- 
nas, for he is a pure Naturalist, and, never having seen a 
Madonna, does not paint any ; but who, as a painter of 
beggar or peasant boys, may be set beside Murillo, or any 
one else, — W. Hunt. He loves peasant boys, because he 
finds them more roughly and picturesquely dressed, and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 14*7 

more healthily coloured, than others. And he paints all that 
he sees in them fearlessly ; all the health and humour, and 
freshness, and vitality, together with such awkwardness and 
stupidity, and what else of negative or positive harm there 
may be in the creature; but yet so that on the whole we love 
it, and find it perhaps even beautiful, or if not, at least we 
see that there is capability of good in it, rather than of evil; 
and all is lighted up by a sunshine and sweet colour that 
makes the smock frock as precious as cloth of gold. But 
look at those two ragged and vicious vagrants that Murillo 
has gathered out of the street. You smile at first, because 
they are eating so naturally, and their roguery is so complete. 
But is there anything else than roguery there, or was it well 
for the painter to give his time to the painting of those repul- 
sive and wicked children? Do you feel moved with any 
charity towards children as you look at them ? Are we the 
least more likely to take any interest in ragged schools, or to 
help the next pauper child that comes in our way, because 
the painter has shown us a cunning beggar feeding greedily. 
Mark the choice of the act. He might have shown hunger 
in other ways, and given interest to even this act of eating, 
by making the face wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did 
not care to do this. He delighted merely in the disgusting 
manner of eating, the food filling the cheek; the boy is not 
hungry, else he would not turn round to talk and grin as he 
eats. 

But observe another point in the lower figure. It lies so 
that the sole of the foot is turned towards the spectator ; not 
because it would have lain less easily in another attitude, but 
that the painter may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust 
engrained in the foot. Do not call this the painting of nature : 
it is mere delight in foulness. The lesson, if there be any, in 
the picture, is not one whit the stronger. We all know that 



148 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

a beggar's bare foot cannot be clean ; there is no need to 
thrust its degradation into the light, as if no human imagina- 
tion were vigorous enough for its conception. 



THE TYPE OF STRONG AND NOBLE LIFE. 

Great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble 
life ; for, as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that 
occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly, — 
looks nothing fiirly in the face, and then allows himself to be 
swept away by the trampling torrent, and unescapable force, 
of the things that he would not foresee, and could not under- 
stand : so the noble person, looking the facts of the w^orld 
full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then 
deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried 
strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no 
unconscious nor insignificant agent, in consummating their 
good, and restraining their evil. 



THE VISIBLE AND THE TANGIBLE. 

Of no other source than the tangible and the visible can 
we, by any effort in our present condition of existence, con- 
ceive. For what revelations have been made to humanity 
inspired, or caught up to heaven of things to the heavenly 
region belonging, have been either by unspeakable words 
w^hich it is not lawful for a man to utter, or else by their very 
nature incommunicable, except in types and shadows ; and 
ineffable by w^ords belonging to earth, for of things different 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 149 

from the visible, words appropriated to tlie visible can convey 
no image. How different fi'om earthly gold that clear pave- 
ment of the city might have seemed to the eyes of St. John, 
we of unreceived sight cannot know ; neither of that strange 
jasper and sardine can we conceive the likeness which he 
assumed that sat on the throne above the crystal sea ; neither 
what seeming that was of slaying that the Root of David 
bore in the midst of the elders ; neither what change it was 
upon the form of the fourth of them that walked in the fur- 
nace of Dura, that even the wrath of idolatry knew for the 
likeness of the Son of God. 



MODERN^ GREATNESS. 

The simple fact, that we are, in some strange way, different 
from all the great races that have existed before us, cannot at 
once be received as the proof of our own greatness ; nor can 
it be granted, Vtithout any question, that we have a legiti- 
mate subject of complacency in being under the influence of 
feelings, with which neither Miltiades nor the Black Prince, 
neither Homer nor Dante, neither Socrates nor St. Fiancis, 
could for an instant have sympathized. 

Whether, however, this fact be one to excite our pride or 
not, it is assuredly one to excite our deepest interest. The 
fact itself is certain. For nearly six thousand years the ener- 
gies of man have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting 
some constancy of feeling throughout all that period, and 
involving some fellowship at heart, among the various nations 
who by turns succeeded or surpassed each other in the seve- 
ral aims of art or policy. So that, for these thousands of 
years, the whole human race might be to some extent 



150 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

described in general terms. Man was a creature separated 
from all others by his instinctive sense of an Existence supe- 
rior to his own, invariably manifesting this sense of the being 
of a God more strongly in proportion to his own perfectness 
of mind and body ; and making enormous and self-denying- 
efforts, in order to obtain some persuasion of the immediate 
presence or approval of the Divinity. 



SMOKE AND THE W^HIRLWIND. 

Much of the love of mystery in our romances, our poetry, 
our art, and, above all, in our metaphysics, must come under 
that definition so long ago given by the great Greek, " speak- 
ing ingeniously concerning smoke." And much of the 
instinct, which, partially developed in painting, may be now 
seen throughout every mode of exertion of mind, — the easily 
encouraged doubt, easily excited curiosity, habitual agitation, 
and dehght in the changing and the marvellous, as opposed 
to the old quiet serenity of social custom and religious f\uth, 
is again deeply defined m those few words, the " dethron- 
ing of Jupiter," the " coronation of the whirlwind." 



MODERN" ENTANGLEMENT. 

The vain and haughty projects of youth for future life ; the 
giddy reveries of insatiable self-exaltation ; the discontented 
dreams of what might have been or should be, instead of the 
thankful understanding of what is ; the casting about for 
sources of interest in senseless fiction, instead of the real 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 151 

human histories of the jDeople round us ; the prolongation 
from age to age of romantic historical deceptions instead of 
sifted trutli ; the pleasures taken, in fxnciful portraits of rural 
or romantic life in poetry and on the stage, without the small- 
est eflbrt to rescue the living rural population of the world 
from its ignorance or misery ; the excitement of the feelings 
by laboured imagination of spirits, fairies, monsters, and 
demons, issuing in total blindness of heart and sight to the 
true presences of beneficent or destructive spiritual powers 
around us ; in fine, the constant abandonment of all the 
straightforward paths of sense and duty, for fear of losing 
some of the enticement of ghostly joys, or trampling some- 
w^hat " sopra lor vanita, che par persona ;" all these various 
forms of false idealism have so entangled the modern mind, 
often called, I suppose ironically, practical, that truly I 
believe there never yet was idolatry of stock or stafiT so 
utterly unholy as this our idolatry of shaclow^s ; nor can I 
think that, of those who burnt incense under oaks, and pop- 
lars, and elms, because "the shadow thereof was good," it 
could in any wise be more justly or sternly declared than of 
us — " The wind hath bound them up in her wrings, and they 
shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices."* 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 

All human government is nothing else than the executive 
expression of Divine authority. The moment government 
ceases to be the practical enforcement of Divine law, it is 
tyranny; and the meaning which I attach to the words, 
"paternal government," is in more extended terms, simply 

* Hosea, chap. iv. 12, 13, and 19. 



]52 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

this—" The executive fulfilment, by formal human methods, 
of the will of the Father of mankind respecting His chil- 
dren." 



THEEE ORDERS OF HUMAN BEINGS. 

The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very different 
from the stern energy which disdains it ; and the coldness of 
heart which receives no emotion from external nature, is not 
to be confounded with the wisdom of purpose which represses 
emotion in action. In the case of most men, it is neither 
acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of humanity, which 
shields them from the' impressions of natural scenery, but 
rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean pleasures; 
and for one who is blinded to the works of God by profound 
abstraction or lofty purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes 
sealed by vulgar selfishness, and their intelligence crushed, 
by impious care. 

Observe, then : we have, among mankind in general, the 
three orders of being ; — the lowest, sordid and selfish, which 
neither sees nor feels ; the second, noble and sympathetic, 
but which sees and. feels without concluding or acting ; the 
third and highest, which loses sight in resolution, and feeling 
in work. 



NATURAL ADMIRATION. 



Examine well the channels of your admiration, and you 
will find thr.t they are, in verity, as unchangeable as the chan- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 153 

nels of your heart's blood ; that just as by the pressure of a 
bandage, or by unwholesome and perpetual action of some 
part of the body, that blood may be wasted or arrested, and 
in its stagnancy cease to nourish the frame, or in its disturbed 
flow aifeet it with incurable disease, so also admiration itself 
^^"lay, by the bandages of foshion, bound close over the eyes 
and the arteries of the soul, be arrested in its natural pulse 
and healthy flow ; but that wherever the artificial pressure is 
removed, it will return into that bed which has been traced 
for it by the finger of God. 



THE EEFOKMATIOX. 

The strength of the Reformation lay entirely in its being a 
movement towards purity of practice. 

The Catholic priesthood was hostile to it in proportion to 
the degree in which they had been false to their own princi- 
ples of moral action, and had become corrupt or worldly in 
heart. 

The Reformers indeed cast out many absurdities, and 
demonstrated many fliUacies, in the teaching of the Roman 
Catholic Church. But they themselves introduced errors, 
which rent the ranks, and finally arrested the march of the 
Reformation, and which paralyze the Protestant Church 
to this day. Errors of wluch the fixtality was increased by 
the controversial bent Avhich lost accuracy of meaning in 
force of declamation, and turned expressions, which ought 
to be used only in retired depth of thought, into phrases of 
custom, or watchwords of attack. Owing to which habits 
of hot, ingenious, and unguarded controvei-sy, the Reformed 
churches themselves soon forgot the meaning of the word 



154 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

which, of all words, was offcenest in their mouths. They for- 
got that ir'Kf Tig is a derivative of '7r£i<)ojxai, not of irKfrsvu^ and 
that "fides," closely connected with "fio" on one side, and 
with "conficlo" on the other, is but distinctly related to 
" credo."* 

By whatever means, however, the reader may himself be 
disposed to admit, the Reformation was arrested ; and got 
itself shut up into chancels of cathedrals in England (even 
those, generally too large for it), and into conventicles every- 
where else. Then rising between the infancy of Reformation, 
and the palsy of Catholicism ; — between a new shell of half- 
built religion on one side, daubed with untempered mortar, 
and a falling ruin of outworn religion on the other, lizard- 
crannied and ivy-grown ; — rose, on its independent foundation, 
the faithless and materialized mind of modern Europe — end- 
ing in the rationalism of Germany, the polite formalism of 
England, the careless blasphemy of France, and the helpless 
sensualities of Italy ; in the midst of which, steadily advanc- 
ing science, and the charities of more and more widely 
extended peace, are preparing the way for a Christian church, 
which shall depend neither on ignorance for its continuance, 
nor on controversy for its progress ; but shall reign at once 
in light and love. 

* None of our present forms of opinion are more curious than those 
which have developed themselves from this verbal carelessness. It never 
seems to strike any of our rehgious teachers, that if a child has a father 
living, it either Jcnows it has a father, or does not : it does not " believe " 
it has a father. "We should be surprised to see an intelligent child stand- 
ing at its garden gate, crying out to the passers-by: "I believe in my 
father, because he built this house;" as logical people proclaim that they 
believe in God, because He must have made the world. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 166 



QUIETNESS. 

The refusal or reserv^e of a mighty painter cannot be imi- 
tated ; it is only by reaching the same intellectual strength 
that you will be able to give an equal dignity to your self- 
denial. Xo one can tell you beforehand what to accept, or 
what to ignore ; only remember always, in painting as in elo- 
quence, the greater your strengtli, the quieter will be your 
manner, and the fewer your words ; and in painting, as in all 
the arts and acts of life, the secret of high success will be 
found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet 
singleness of justly chosen aim. 



THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 

Two great errors, coloring, or 'rather discoloring, severally, 
the minds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide 
dissension, and wider misfortune, through the society of 
modern days. These errors are in our modes of interpreting 
the word " gentleman." 

Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is "a man of 
l^ure race ;" well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well 
bred. 

The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race 
than the lower, have retained the true idea, and the convic- 
tions associated with it ; but are afraid to speak it out, and 
equivocate about it in public ; this equivocation mainly pro- 
ceeding from their desire to connect another meaning with it, 
and a false one ; — that of " a man living in idleness on other 
people's labor ;" — with which idea the term has nothing what- 
ever to do. 



156 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

The lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the 
notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling 
that the more any one w^orks, the more of a gentleman he 
becomes, and is likely to become, — have nevertheless got little 
of the good they otherwise might, from the truth, because, 
w^ith it, they w^anted to hold a falsehood, — namely, that race 
w^as of no consequence. It being precisely of as much con- 
sequence in man as it is in any other animal. 

The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are 
finally got quit of. Gentlemen have to learn that it is no 
part of their duty or privilege to live on other people's toil. 
They have to learn that there is no degradation in the hardest 
manual, or the humblest servile, labor, when it is honest. 
But that there is degradation, and that deep, in extravagance, 
in bribery, in indolence, in pride, in taking places they are not 
fit for, or in coining places for which there is no need. It 
does not disgrace a gentleman to become an errand boy, or a 
day laborer ; but it disgraces him much to become a knave, 
or a thief. And knavery is not the less knavery because it 
involves large interests, nor theft the less theft because it is 
countenanced by usage, or accompanied by failure in under- 
taken duty. It is an incomparably less guilty form of robbery 
to cut a purse out of a man's pocket, than to take it out of 
his hand on the understanding that you are to steer his ship 
up channel, when you do not know the soundings. 

On the other hand, the lower orders, and all orders, have to 
learn that every vicious habit and chronic disease communi- 
cates itself by descent; and that by purity of birth the entire 
system of the human body and soul may be gradually elevat- 
ed, or by recklessness of birth, degraded ; until there shall 
be as much difference between the well-bred and ill-bred 
human creature (whatever pains be taken with their education) 
as between a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. And 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 157 

tlie knowledge of this great fact ought to regulate the 
education of our youth, and the entire conduct of the 
nation.* 

Gentlemanlhiess, however, in ordinary parlance, must be 
taken to signifiy those qualities which are usually the evidence 
of high breeding, and which, so far as they can be acquired, 
it should be every man's effort to acquire ; or, if he has them 
by nature, to preserve and exalt. Vulgarity, on the other 
hand, will signify qualities usually characteristic of ill-breed- 
ing, which, according to his power, it becomes every person's 
duty to subdue. We have briefly to note what these are, 

A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of struc- 
ture in the body, which renders it capable of the most deli- 
cate sensation ; and of structure in the mind which renders it 

* "We ought always in pure English to use the term " good breeding" 
literally ; and to say " good nurture" for what we usually mean by good 
breeding. Given the race and make of the animal, you may turn it to good 
or bad account ; you may spoil your good dog or colt, and make him as 
vicious as you choose, or break his back at once by ill-usage ; and you may, 
on the other hand, make something serviceable and respectable out of your 
poor cur or colt if you educate them carefully ; but ill-bred they will both 
of them be to their lives' end ; and the best you wih ever be able to say of 
them is, that they are useful, and decently behaved ill-bred creatures. An 
error, which is associated with the truth, and which makes it always look 
weak and disputable, is the confusion of race with name ; and the supposi- 
tion that the blood of a family must still be good, if its genealogy be 
unbroken and its name not lost, though sire and son have been indulging 
age after age in habits involving perpetual degeneracy of race. Of course 
it is equally an error to suppose that, because a man's name is common, liis 
blood must be base ; since his family may have been ennobling it by pure- 
ncss of moral habit for many generations, and yet may not have got any title, 
or other sign of nobleness attached to their names. Nevertheless, the pro- 
bability is always in favour of the race which has had acknowledged supre- 
macy, and in which every motive leads to the endeavour to preserve their 
true nobility. 



158 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

capable of the most delicate sympathies — one maj say, sim- 
ply, " lineness of nature." This is, of course, compatible with 
heroic bodily strength and mental firmness ; in fact heroic 
strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephan- 
tine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no 
touch of the boughs ; but the white skin of Homer's Atrides 
would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feelings in 
glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean 
to call an elephant a vulgar animal ; but if you think about 
him carefully, you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in 
such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature ; not in 
bis insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot; but in the way he 
will lift his foot if a child lies in his way ; and in his sensitive 
trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique 
on points of honour. . 

And, though rightness of moral conduct is ultimately the 
great purifier of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this 
rightness of moral conduct, but in sensitiveness. When the 
make of the creature is fine, its temptations are strong, as well 
as its perceptions ; it is liable to all kinds of impressions from 
without in their most violent form ; liable therefore to be 
abused and hurt by all kinds of rough things which would do 
a coarser creature little harm, and thus to fall into frightful 
wrong if its fate will have it so. Thus David, coming of gen- 
tlest as well as royalest race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, is 
sensitiveness through all flesh and spirit ; not that his compas- 
sion, will restrain him from murder when his terror urges him 
to it ; nay, he is driven to the murder all the more by his sen- 
sitiveness to the shame which otherwise threatens him. But 
when his own story is told him under a disguise, though only 
a lamb is now concerned, his passion about it leaves him 
no time for thought. " The man shall die" — note the reason 
— " because he had no pity." He is so eager and indignant 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 159 

that it never occurs to him as strange that Nathan hides 
the name. This is true gentleman. A vulgar man would 
assuredly have been cautious, and asked " who it was ? " 

Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high- 
breeding in men generally, will be their kindness and merci- 
fulness ; these always indicating more or less fineness of make 
in the mind ; and miserliness and cruelty the contrary ; hence 
that of Isaiah : " The vile person shall no more be called 
liberal, nor the chnrl said to be bountiful." But a thousand 
things may prevent this kindness from displaying or continu- 
ing itself; the mind of the man may be warped so as to bear 
mainly on his own interests, and then all his sensibilities will 
take the form of pride, or fastidiousness, or revengefulness ; 
and other wicked, but not ungentlemanly tempers ; or, far- 
ther, they may run into utter sensuality and covetousness, if 
he is bent on pleasure, accompanied with quite infinite cruelty 
when the pride is wounded or the passions thwarted ; — until 
your gentleman becomes Ezzelin, and your lady, the deadly 
Lucrece ; yet still gentleman and lady, quite incapable of 
making anything else of themselves, being so born. 

A truer sign of breeding than mere kindness is therefore 
sympathy ; a vulgar man may often be kind in a hard way, 
on principle, and because he thinks he ought to be ; whereas, 
a highly-bred man, even when cruel, will be cruel in a softer 
way, understanding and feeling Avhat he inflicts, and pitying 
his victim. Only we must carefully remember that the quan- 
tity of sympathy a gentleman feels can never be judged of 
by its outward expression, for another of his chief character- 
istics is apparent reserve. I say " apparent " reserve ; for 
the sympathy is real, but the reserve not : a perfect gentle- 
man is never reserved, but sweetly and entirely open, so far 
as it is good for others, or possible, that he should be. In a 
great many respects it is impossible that he should be open 



160 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

except to men of bis own kind. To them, he can open him- 
self, by a woi-d, or syllable, or a glance ; but to men not of 
his kind he cannot open himself, though he tried it through 
an eternity of clear grammatical speech. By the very acute- 
ness of his sympathy he knows how much of himself he can 
give to anybody ; and he gives that much frankly ; — w^ould 
always be glad to give more if he could, but is obliged, never- 
theless, in his general intercourse wdth the world, to be a 
somewhat silent person ; silence is to most people, he finds, 
less reserve than speech. Whatever he said, a vulgar man 
would misinterpret : no words that he could use would bear 
the same sense to the vulgat* man that they do to him ; if he 
used any, the vulgar man would go away saying, " He had 
said so and so, and meant so and so " (something assuredly 
he never meant) ; but he keeps silence, and the vulgar man 
goes away saying, "He didn't know^ what to make of him." 
Which is precisely the fact, and the only fact which he is any- 
wise able to announce to the vulgar man concerning himself. 
There is yet another quite as efficient cause of the apparent 
reserve of a gentleman. His sensibility being constant and 
intelligent, it will be seldom that a feeling touches liim, how- 
ever acutely, but it has touched him in the same way often 
before, and in some sort is touching him always. It is not 
that he feels little, but that he feels habitually ; a vulgar man 
having some heart at the bottom of him, if you can by talk or 
by sight fairly force the pathos of anything down to his heart, 
will be excited about it and demonstrative ; the sensation of 
pity being strange to him, and wonderful. But your gentle- 
man has walked in pity all daylong; the tears have never 
been out of his eyes ; you thought the eyes were bright only; 
but they were wet. You tell him a sorrowful story, and his 
countenance does not change ; the eyes can but be wet still ; 
he does not speak neither, there being, in fact, nothing to be 



PRECIOUS Til OUGHTS. 161 

said, only something to be done ; some vulgar person, beside 
you both, goes away saying, " How hard he is !" Next day 
he hears that the hard person has put good end to the sor- 
row he said nothing about ; — and then he changes liis wonder, 
and exclaims, " How reserved he is !" 

Self-command is often thought a characteristic of high- 
breeding : and to a certain extent it is so, at least it is one 
of the means of forming and strengthening character ; but it 
is rather a way of imitating a gentleman than a characteristic 
of him ; a true gentleman has no need of self-command ; he 
simply feels rightly on all occasions : and desiring to express 
only so much of his feeling as it is right to express, does not 
need to command himself Hence perfect ease is indeed 
characteristic of him ; but perfect ease is inconsistent with 
self-restraint. Nevertheless gentlemen, so far as they fail of 
their own ideal, need to command themselves, and do so ; 
while, on the contrary, to feel unwisely, and to be unable 
to restrain the expression of the unwise feeling, is vulgarity ; 
and yet even then, the vulgarity, at its root, is not in the mis- 
timed expression, but in the unseemly feeling ; and when we 
find fault with a vulgar person for " exposing himself," it is 
not his openness, but clumsiness ; and yet more the want of 
sensibility to his own failm-e, which we blame ; so that still 
the vulgarity resolves itself into want of sensibility. Also, it 
is to be noted that great powers of self-restraint may be 
attained by very vulgar persons, when it suits their purposes. 

Closely, but strangely, connected with this openness is that 
form of truthfulness which is opposed to cunning, yet not 
opposed to falsity absolute. And herein is a distinction of 
great importance. 

Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching, 
accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It 
IS associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute 



162 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

want of sympatliy or affection. Its essential connection with 
vulgarity may be at once exem2)lified by the expression of the 
butcher's dog in Landseer's "Low Life." Cruikshank's 
" Noah Claypole," in the illustrations to Oliver Twist, in the 
interview with the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. 
It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity absolute and utter 
with which I am acquainted.* 

The truthfulness which is opposed to cunning ought, per- 
haps, rather to be called the desire of truthfulness ; it comes 
more in unwillingness to deceive than in not deceiving, — and 
unwillingness implying sympathy with and respect for the per- 
son deceived ; and a fond observance of truth up to the possi- 
ble point, as in a good soldier's mode of retaining his honour 
through a ruse-de- guerre. A cunning person seeks for oppor- 
tunities to deceive ; a gentleman shuns them. A cunning per- 
son triumphs in deceiving ; a gentleman is humiUated by the 
success, or at least by so much of the success as is dependent 
merely on the falsehood, and not on his intellectual supe- 
riority. 

The absolute disdain of all lying belongs rather to Chris- 
tian chivalry than to mere high breeding ; as connected 
merely with this latter, and with general resolution and cou- 
rage, the exact relations of truthfulness may be best studied 
in the well-trained Greek mind. The Greeks believed that 
mercy and truth were co-relative virtues — cruelty and false- 
hood, co-relative vices. But they did not call necessary 
severity, cruelty ; nor necessary decei^tion, falsehood. It was 

* Among the reckless losses of the right service of intellectual power 
with which tliis century must be charged, very few are, to my mind, more 
to be regretted than that which is involved in its having turned to no 
higher purpose than the illustration of the career of Jack Sheppard, and of 
the Irish Rebellion, the great, grave (I use the words deUberately and witJi 
large meaning), and singular genius of Cruikshank. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 163 

needful sometimes to slay men, and sometimes to deceive 
tbem. When this had to be done, it should be done well 
and thoroughly ; so that to direct a spear well to its mark, 
or a lie well to its end, was equally the accomplishment of a 
perfect gentleman. Hence, in the pretty diamond-cut-dia- 
mond scene between Pallas and Ulysses, when she receives 
him on the coast of Ithaca, the goddess laughs delightedly 
at her hero's good lying, and gives him her hand npon it ; 
she feels herself then in her woman's form, as just a little 
more than his match. " Subtle would he be, and stealthy, 
who should go beyond thee in deceit, even were he a god, 
thou many-witted ! What ! here in thine OAvn land, too, wilt 
thou not cease from cheating ? Knowest thou not me, Pallas 
Athena, maid of Jove, who am with thee in all thy labours, 
and gave thee favour with the Phteacians, and keep thee, and 
have come now to weave cunning with thee ?" But how com- 
pletely this kind of cunning was looked upon as a part of a 
man's power, and not as a diminution of faithfulness, is per- 
haps best shown by the single line of praise in which the high 
qualities of his servant are summed uj) by Chremulus in the 
Plutus — " Of all my house servants, I hold you to be the 
faithfullest, and the greatest cheat (or thief)." 

Thus, the primal difference between honourable and base 
lying in the Greek mind lay in honourable purpose. A man 
who used his strength wantonly to hurt others was a mon- 
ster; so, also, a man who used his cunning wantonly to hurt 
others. Strength and cunning were to be used only in self- 
defence, or to save the weak, and then w^ere alike admirable. 
This was their first idea. Then the second, and perhaps the 
more essential difference between noble and ignoble lying in 
tlie Greek mind, was that the honourable lie — or, if we may 
use the strange, yet just, expression, the true lie — knew and 
confessed itself for such — was ready to take the full respoiisi- 



164 PRECIOrS THOUGHTS. 

bility of what it did. As the sword answered for its blow, 
so the lie for its snare. But what the Greeks hated w^ith all 
their heart was the false lie ; the lie that did not know itself, 
feared to confess itself, which slunk to its aim under a cloak 
of ti-uth, and sought to do liars' work, and yet not take liars' 
pay, excusing itself to the conscience by quibble and quirk. 
Hence the great expression of Jesuit principle by Euripides, 
"The tongue has sworn, but not the heart," was a subject 
of execration throughout Greece, and the satirists exhausted 
their arrows on it — no audience was ever tired hearing (to 
Eupi'Tfidsiov sxsTvo) " that Euripidian thing" brought to shame. 

And this is especially to be insisted on an the early educa- 
tion of young peoi^le. It should be pointed out to them with 
continual earnestness that the essence of lying is in decep- 
tion, not in words; a lie may be told by silence, by equivoca- 
tion, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye 
attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence ; and all these 
kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie 
plainly worded ; so that no form of blinded conscience is so 
fir sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived, 
because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of 
utterance, and, finally, according to Tennyson's deep and 
trenchant line, "A lie which is half a truth is ever the worst 
of lies." 

Although, however, ungenerous cunning is usually so dis- 
tinct an outward manifestation of vulgarity, that I name it 
separately from insensibility, it is in truth only an effect of 
insensibility, producing want of affection to others, and blind- 
ness to the beauty of truth. The degree in which political 
subtlety in men such as Richelieu, Machiavel, or Metternich, 
will efface the gentleman, depends on the selfishness of poli- 
tical purpose to which the cunning is directed, and on the 
base delight taken in its use. The connnand, " Be ye wise as 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 165 

serpents, harmless as doves," is the ultimate expression of 
this principle, misunderstood usually because the word " wise" 
is referred to the intellectual power instead of the subtlety of 
the serpent. The serpent has very little intellectual power, 
but accoi'ding to that which it has, it is yet, as of old, the 
subtlest of the beasts of the field. 

Another great sign of vulgarity is also, when traced to its 
root, another i)hase of insensibility, namely, the undue regard 
to appearances and manners, as in the households of vulgar 
persons, of all stations, and the assumption of behaviour, 
language, or dress unsuited to them, by persons in infeiior 
stations of life. I say " undue" regard to appearances, because 
in the undueness consists, of course, the vulgarity. It 
is due and wise in some sort to care for appearances, in 
another sort undue and unwise. Wherein lies the differ- 
ence? 

At first one is apt to answer quickly; the vulgarity is sim- 
ply in pretending to be what you are not. But that answer 
will not stand. A queen may dress like a waiting-maid, — 
perhaps succeed, if she chooses, in passing for one ; but she will 
not, therefore, be vulgar ; nay, a waiting-maid may dress like 
a queen, and pretend to be one, and yet need not be vulgar, 
unless there is inherent vulgarity in her. In Scribe's very 
absurd but very amusing Berne d\m jour, a milliner's girl 
sustains the part ©f a queen for a day. She several times 
amazes and disgusts her courtiers by her straightforwardness ; 
and once or twice very neai-ly betrays herself to her maids 
of honour by an unqueenly knowledge of sewing ; but she is 
not in the least vulgar, for she is sensitive, simple, and gene- 
rous, and a queen could be no more. 

Is the vulgarity, then, only in trying to play a part you 
cannot play, so as to be continually detected ? No ; a bad 
amateur actor may be continually detected in his part, but 



166 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

yet continually detected to be a gentleman : a vulgar regard 
to appearances has nothing in it necessarily of hypocrisy. 
You shall know a man not to be a gentleman by the perfect 
and neat pronunciation of his words ; but he does not pretend 
to j^ronounce accurately ; he does pronounce accurately, the 
vulgarity is in the real (not assumed) scrupulousness. 

It will be found on farther thought, that a vulgar regard 
for appearances is, primarily, a selfish one, resulting, not out 
of a wish to give pleasure (as a wife's wish to make herself 
beautiful for her husband), but out of an endeavour to mortify 
others, or attract for pride's sake; — the common "keeping 
lip appearances " of society, being a mere selfish struggle of 
the vain with the vain. But the deepest stain of the vulga- 
rity depends on this being done, not selfishly only, but stu- 
pidly, without understanding the impression which is really 
produced, nor the relations of importance between oneself 
and others, so as to suppose that their attention is fixed 
upon us, when we are in reality cyphers in their eyes — 
all which comes of insensibility. Hence pride simple is not 
vulgar (the looking down on others because of their true 
inferiority to us), nor vanity simple (the desire of praise), but 
conceit simple (the attribution to ourselves of qualities we 
have not), is always so. In cases of over-studied pronuncia- 
tion, &c., there is insensibility, first, in the person's thinking 
more of himself than of what he is saying ; and, secondly, in 
his not having musical fineness of ear enough to feel that his 
talking is uneasy and strained. 

Finally, vulgarity is indicated by coarseness of language or 
manners, only so far as this coarseness has been contracted 
under circumstances not necessarily producing it. The illite- 
rateness of a Spanish or Calabrian peasant is not vulgar, 
because they had never an opportunity of acquiring letters : 
but the illiterateness of an English school-boy is. So again. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. IQ^ 

provincial dialect is not vulgar ; but cockney dialect, the 
corruption, by blunted sense, of a finer language continually 
heard, is so in a deep degree ; and again, of this corrupted 
dialect, that is the worst which consists, not in the direct or 
expressive alteration of the form of a word, but in an unmu- 
sical destruction of it by dead utterance and bad or swollen 
formation of lip. There is no vulgarity in — 

" Blythe, blythe, blythe was she, 
Blythe was she, but and ben, 
And weel she liked a Hawick gill, 
And leugh to see a tappit hen;" 

but much in Mrs. Gamp's inarticulate " bottle on the chum- 
ley-piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dis- 
poged." 

So also of personal defects, those only are vulgar which 
imply insensibility or dissipation. 

There is no vulgarity in the emaciation of Don Quixote, 
the deformity of the Black Dwarf, or the corpulence of Fal- 
staff ; but much in the same personal characters as they are 
seen in Uriah Heep, Quilp, and Chadband. 

Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar ; in an antiquary's 
study, not ; the black battle-stain on a soldier's face is not 
vulgar, but the dirty face of a housemaid is. 

And lastly, courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is pecu- 
liarly the mark of a gentieman or a lady : but it becomes 
vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if 
it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is 
not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile " gentle " because 
courageous. 



168 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



VIRTUES SQUARED AND COUNTED. 

It was not possible to measure the waves of the water of 
life, but it was perfectly possible to measure the bricks of the 
Tower of Babel ; and gradually, as the thoughts of men 
were withdrawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon them- 
selves, the virtues began to be squared, and counted, and 
classified, and put into separate heaps of firsts and seconds; 
some things being virtuous cardinally, and other things vir- 
tuous only north-north-west. It is very curious to put in close 
juxtaposition the words of the Apostles and of some of the 
writers of the fifteenth century touching sanctification. For 
instance, hear first St. Paul to the Thessalonians : " The very 
God of peace sanctify you wholly : and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that 
calleth you, who also will do it."" And then the following 
part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of the fifteenth 
century : " May He (the Holy Spirit) govern the five Senses 
of my body ; may He cause me to embrace the Seven Works 
of Mercy, and firmly to believe and observe the Twelve 
Articles of the Faith and the Ten Commandments of the 
Law, and defend me from the Seven Mortal Sins, even to the 
end." 

This tendency, as it affected Christian ethics, was confirmed 
by the Renaissance enthusiasm for the works of Aristotle and 
Cicero, from whom the code of the fifteenth century virtues 
was borrowed, and whose authority was then infinitely more 
revered by all the Doctors of the Church than that either of 
St. Paul or St. Peter. 

Although, however, this change in the tone of the Chris- 
tian mind was most distinctly manifested when the revival 
of literature rendered the works of the heathen philosophers 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 169 

the leading study of all the greatest scholars of the period, it 
h:id been, as I said before, taking place graduallv from the 
earliest ages. It is, as flir as I know, that root of the 
Renaissance poison-tree, which, of all others, is deepest 
struck; showing itself in various measures through tlie 
writings of all the Fathers, of course exactly in proportion to 
tlie respect which they paid to classical authors, especially to 
Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. The mode in which the pesti- 
lent study of that literature affected them may be well illus- 
trated by the examination of a single passage from the works 
of one of the best of them, St. Ambrose, and of the mode in 
which that passage was then amplified and formalized by later 
writers. 

Plato, indeed, studied alone, would have done no one any 
harm. He is profoundly spiritual and capacious in all his 
views, and embraces the small systems of Aristotle and 
Cicero, as the solar system does the Earth. He seems to me 
especially remarkable for the sense of the great Christian 
virtue of Holiness, or sanctifi cation ; and for the sense of the 
presence of the Deity in all things, great or small, which 
always runs in a solemn undercurrent beneath his excpiisite 
playfulness and irony ; while all the merely moral virtues may 
be found in his writings defined in the most noble manner, as 
a great painter defines his figures, without outlines. But the 
imperfect scholarship of later ages seems to have gone to 
Plato, only to find in him the system of Cicero ; which indeed 
was very definitely expressed by him. For it having been 
quickly felt by all men who strove, unhelped by Christian 
faith, to enter at the strait gate into the paths of virtue, that 
there were four cliaracters of mind which were protective or 
preservative of all that was best in man, namely. Prudence, 
Justice, Courage, and Temperance,* these were afterwards 

* This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to have been first made 



170 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

with most illogical inaccuracy, called cardinal virtues^ Pru- 
dence being evidently no virtue, but an intellectual gift : but 
this inaccuracy arose partly from the ambiguous sense of the 
Latin word "virtutes," which sometimes, in mediaaval lan- 
guage, signifies virtues, sometimes powers (being occasionally 
used in the Vulgate for the word " hosts," as in Psalm ciii. 21, 
cxlviii. 2, etc., while " fortitudines" and " exercitus" are used 
for the same word in other places), so that Prudence might 
properly be styled a power, though not properly a virtue ; 
and partly from the confusion of Prudence with Heavenly 
Wisdom. The real rank of these four virtues, if so they are 
to be called, is however properly expressed by the term "car- 
dinal." They are virtues of the compass, those by which all 
others are directed and strengthened ; they are not the great- 
est virtues, but the restraining or modifying virtues, thus 
Prudence restrains zeal. Justice restrains mercy. Fortitude 
and Temperance guide the entire system of the passions ; and, 
thus understood, these virtues properly assumed their pecu- 
liar leading or guiding position in the system of Christian 
ethics. But in Pagan ethics, they were not only guiding, but 
comprehensive. They meant a great deal more on the lips 
of the ancients, than they now express to the Christian mind. 
Cicero's Justice includes charity, beneficence, and benignity, 
truth, and fiuth in the sense of trustworthiness. His Forti- 
tude includes courage, self-command, the scorn of fortune and 
of all temporary felicities. His Temperance includes courtesy 
and modesty. So also, in Plato, these four virtues constitute 
the sum of education. I do not remember any more simple 
or perfect expression of the idea, than in the account given 
by Socrates, in the " Alcibiades I.," of the education of the 

by Archytas. See D'Ancarville's illustration of the three figures of Pru- 
dence, Fortitude, and Charity, in Selvatico's " Cappellina degli Scrovegni," 
Padua, 1836. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 171 

Persian kings, for whom, in their youth, there are chosen, he 
says, four tutors from among the Persian nobles ; namely, the 
Wisest, the most Just, the most Temperate, and the most 
Brave of them. Then each has a distinct duty : "the Wisest 
teaches the young king the worship of the gods, and the 
duties of a king (something more here, observe, than our 
'Prudence!'); the most Just teaches him to speak all truth, 
and to act out all truth, through the whole course of his life ; 
the most Temperate teaches him to allow no pleasure to have 
the mastery of him, so that he may be truly free, and indeed 
a king ; and the most Brave makes him fearless of all things, 
showing him that the moment he fears anything, he becomes 
a slave." 

All this is exceedingly beautiful, so far as it reaches ; but the 
Chiistian divines were grievously led astray by their endea- 
vours to reconcile this system with the nobler law of love. 
At first, as in the passage I am just going to quote from St. 
Ambrose, they tried to graft the Christian system on the four 
bi*anches of the Pagan one ; but finding that the tree would 
not grow, they planted the Pagan and Christian branches 
side by side ; adding, to the four cardinal virtues, the three 
called by the schoolmen theological, namely. Faith, Hope, 
and Charity : the one series considered as attainable by the 
Heathen, but the other by the Christian only. Thus Virgil 
to Sordello : 



" Loco e laggiu, non tristo da martiri 
Ma di tenebre solo, ove i lamenti 
Non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri : 



Quivi sto io, con quel che le tre sante 
Virtu non si vestiro, e senza vizio 
Conobber 1' altre, e seguir, tutte quante," 



1V2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

" There I with those abide 

Who the Three Holy Virtues put not on, 

But understood the rest, and without blame 

Followed them all." 

CARr. 

This arrangement of the virtues was, however, productive 
of infinite confusion and error : in the first place, because 
Faith is classed with its own fruits, — the gift of God, which 
is the root of the virtues, classed simply as one of them ; in 
the second, because the words used by the ancients to express 
the several virtues liad always a different meaning from the 
same expressions in the Bible, sometimes a more extended, 
somethnes a more limited one. Imagine, for instance, the 
confusion which must have been introduced into the ideas of 
a student who read St. Paul and Aristotle alternately; con- 
sidering that the word which the Greek writer uses for Jus- 
tice, means, with St. Paul, Righteousness. And lastly, it is 
impossible to overrate the mischief produced in former days, 
as well as in our own, by the mere habit of reading Aristotle, 
whose system is so false, so forced, and so confused, that the 
study of it at our universities is quite enough to occasion the 
utter want of accurate habits of thought which so often dis- 
graces men otherwise well-educated. In a word, Aristotle 
mistakes the Prudence or Temperance w^hich must regulate 
the operation of the virtues, for the essence of the virtues 
themselves ; and, striving to show that all virtues are means 
between two opposite vices, torments his wnt to discover and 
distinguish as many pairs of vices as are necessary to the com- 
pletion of his system, not disdaining to employ sophistry 
where invention fails him. 

And, indeed, the study of classical literature, in general, 
not only fostered in the Christian writers the unfortunate love 
of systematizing, which gradually degenerated into every spe- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. l73 

cies of contemptible formulism, but it accustomed them to 
work out their systems by the help of any logical quibble, or 
verbal subtlety, which could be made available for tlieir pur- 
pose, and this not Avith any dishonest intention, but in a sin- 
cere desire to arrange their ideas in systematical groups, 
while yet their powers of thought were not accurate enough, 
nor their common sense stern enough, to detect the fallacy, 
or disdain the finesse, by which these arrangements were fre- 
quently accompHshed. 

Thus St. Ambrose, in his commentary on Luke vi. 20, is 
resolved to transform the four Beatitudes there described 
into rewards of the four cardinal Virtues, and sets himself 
thus ingeniously to the task : 

'"Blessed be ye poor.' Here you have Temperance. 
' Blessed are ye that hunger now.' He who hungers, pities 
those who are an-hungered ; in pitying, he gives to them, 
and in giving he becomes just (largiendo fit Justus). ' Blessed 
are ye that w^eep now, for ye shall laugh.' Here you have 
Prudence, Avhose part it is to weep, so far as present things 
are concerned, and to seek things which are eternal. 
' Blessed are ye when men shall hate you.' Here you have 
Fortitude." 

As a preparation for this profitable exercise of wit, we 
have also a reconcihation of the Beatitudes as stated by St. 
Matthew, with those of St. Luke, on the ground that "in 
those eight are these four, and in these four are those eight ;" 
with sundry remarks on the mystical value of the number 
eight, with which I need not trouble the I'eader. With St. 
Ambrose, however, this puerile systematization is quite sub- 
ordinate to a very forcible and truthful exposition of the real 
nature of the Christian life. But the classification he employs 
fui-nishes ground for farther subtleties to future divines ; and 
in a MS. of the thirteenth century I find some expressions in 



174 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



this commentary on St. Luke, and in the treatise on the duties 
of bishops, amplified into a treatise on the " Steps of the 
Virtues : by which every one who perseveres may, by a 
straight path, attain to the heavenly country of the Angels." 
(" Liber de Gradibus Virtutum : quibus ad patriam angelo- 
rum supernam itinere recto ascenditur ab omni perseverante.") 
These Steps are thirty in number (one expressly for each day 
of the month), and the curious mode of their association ren- 
ders the list well worth quoting : — 



Primus 


gradus est 


Pides Recta. 


Unerring faith. 


Secundi 


IS „ 


Spes firma. 


Firm hope. 


Tertius 


;} 


Caritas perfecta. 


Perfect charity. 


4. 


)) 


Patientia vera. 


True patience. 


5. 


» 


Humilitas sancta. 


Holy humility. 


6. 


j; 


Mansuetudo. 


Meekness. 


7. 


)) 


Intelligentia. 


Understanding. 


8. 


» 


Compunctio cordis. 


Contrition of heart. 


9. 


)J 


ratio. 


Prayer. 


10. 


V 


Confessio pura. 


Pure confession. 


11. 


V 


Penitentia digna. 


Fitting penance.* 


12. 


>» 


Abstinentia. 


Abstinence (fasting). 


13. 


>J 


Timor Dei. 


Fear of God. 


14. 


» 


Virginitas. 


Virginity. 


15. 


)} 


Jusdcia. 


Justice. 


16. 


V 


Misericordia. 


Mercy. 


17. 


n 


Elemosina. 


Almsgiving. 


18. 


V 


Hospitalitas. 


Hospitality. 


19. 


a 


Honor parentum. 


Honouring of parents. 


20. 


V 


Silencium. 


Silence. 


21. 


» 


Consilium bonum. 


Good counsel. 


22. 


jj 


Judicium rectum. 


Eight judgment. 


23. 


» 


Exemplum bonum. 


Good example. 



* Or Penitence : but I rather think this is understood only in Compuno- 
tio cordis. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 175 

24. gradus est Visitatio infirmorum. Visitation of the sick. 

25. „ Frequentatio sancto- Companying with 

rum. saints. 

26. „ Oblatio justa. Just oblations. 

27. „ Decimas Deo solvere. Paying tithes to God. 

28. „ Sapientia. Wisdom, 

29. „ Voluntas bona. Goodwill 

30. „ Perseverantia. Perseverance. 

The reader will note that the general idea of Christian 
virtue embodied in this hst is true, exalted, and beautiful ; the 
points of weakness being the confusion of duties with virtues, 
and the vain endeavour to enumerate the various offices of 
charity as so many separate virtues ; more frequently arranged 
as seven distinct works of mercy. This general tendency to 
a morbid accuracy of classification was associated, in later 
times, with another very important element of the Renais- 
sance mind, the love of personification ; which appears to 
have reached its greatest vigour in the course of the sixteenth 
century, and is expressed to all future ages, in a consummate 
manner, in the poem of Spenser. It is to be noted that per- 
sonification is, in some sort, the reverse of symbolism, and is 
far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of a great truth 
by an imperfect and inferior sign (as, for instance, of the hope 
of the resurrection by the form of the phcenix) ; and it is 
almost always employed by men in their most serious moods 
of faith, rarely in recreation. Men who use symbolism forci- 
bly are almost always true believers in what they symbolize. 
But Personification is the bestowing of a human or living 
form upon an abstract idea : it is, in most Cases, a mere 
recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the 
reality of the thing personified. Thus symbolism constituted 
the entire system of the Mosaic dispensation : it occurs in 
every word of Christ's teaching ; it attaches perpetual mys- 



176 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

tery to the last and most solemn act of His life. But I do 
not recollect a single instance of personification in any of his 
words. And as we watch, thenceforward, the history of the 
Church, we shall find the declension of its faith exactly 
marked by the abandonment of symbolism,* and the profuse 
employment of personification, — even to such an extent that 
the virtues came, at last, to be confused with the saints ; and 
we find in the later Litanies, St. Faith, St. Hope, St. Charity, 
and St. Chastity, invoked immediately after St. Clara and St. 
Bridget. 

Nevertheless, in the hands of its early and earnest masters, 
in whom fancy could not overthrow the foundations of faith, 
personification is often thoroughly noble and lovely ; the 
earlier conditions of it being just as much more spiritual and 
vital than the later ones, as the still earlier symbolism was 
more spiritual than they. 



THE christia:n^ theory of beauty. 

As it is necessary to the existence of an idea of beauty, 
that the sensual pleasure which may be its basis, should be 
accompanied first with joy, then with love of the object, then 
with the perception of kindness in a superior Intelligence, 
finally with thankfulness and veneration towards that Intelli- 
gence itself, and as no idea can be at all considered as in any 
way an idea of beauty, until it be made up of these emotions, 
any more than we can be said to have an idea of a letter of 

* The transformation of a symbol into a realit}^, observe, as in trausub- 
stantiation, is as much an abandonment of symbohsm as the forgetfulness 
of symbolic meaning altogether. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 177 

which we perceive the perfume and the fair writing, without 
understanding the contents of it, or intent of it ; and as 
these emotions are in no way resultant from, nor obtainable 
by, any operation of the intellect, it is evident that the sensa- 
tion of beauty is not sensual on the one hand, nor is it intel- 
lectual on the other, but is dependent on a pure, right, and 
open state of the heart, both for its truth and for its intensity, 
insomuch that even the right after action of the intellect upon 
fixcts of beauty so apprehended, is dependent on the acute- 
ness of the heart feeling about them ; and thus the Apostolic 
words come true, in this minor respect as in all others, that 
men are alienated from the life of God, through the igno- 
rance that is in them, having the understanding darkened 
because of the hardness of their hearts, and so being past 
feeling, give themselves up to lasciviousness ; for we do indeed 
see constantly that men having naturally acute perceptions of 
the beautiful, yet not receiving it with a pure heart nor into 
their hearts at all, never comprehend it, nor receive good 
from it, but make it a mere minister to their desires, and 
accompaniment and seasoning of lower sensual pleasures, 
until all their emotions take the same earthly stamp, and the 
sense of beauty sinks into the servant of lust. 

ISTor is w^hat the world commonly understands by the cul- 
tivation of taste, anything more or better than this, at least 
in times of corrupt and over-pampered civilization, when men 
build palaces and plant groves and gather luxuries, that they 
and their devices may hang in the corners of the world like 
fine-spun cobwebs, with greedy, puifed-up, spider-like lusts in 
the middle. And this, which in Christian times is the abuse 
and corruption of the sense of beauty, was in that Pagan life 
of which St. Paul speaks, little less than the essence of it, and 
the best they had ; for I know not that of the expressions of 
affection towards external nature to be found among Heathen 

8* 



178 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

writers, there are any of which the balance and leading 
thought cleaves not towards the sensual parts of her. Her 
beneficence they sought, and her power they shunned, her 
teaching through both, they understood never. The pleasant 
influences of soft winds and ringing streamlets ; and shady 
coverts; of the violet couch, and plane-tree shade,* they 
received, perhaps, in a more noble way than we, but they 
found not anything except fear, upon the bare mountain, or 
in the ghostly glen. The Hybla heather they loved more for 
its sweet hives than its purple hues. But the Christian the- 
oria seeks not, though it accepts, and touches with its own 
purity, what the Epicurean sought, but finds its food and the 
objects of its love everywhere, in what is harsh and fearful, 
as well as what is kind, nay, even in all that seems coarse and 
commonplace; seizing that which is good, and delighting 
more sometimes at finding its table spread in strange places, 
and in the presence of its enemies, and its honey coming out 
of the rock, than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous 
pleasure; hating only what is self-sighted and insolent of 
men's work, despising all that is not of God, unless remind- 
ing it of God, yet able to find evidence of him still, where all 
seems forgetful of him, and to turn that into a witness of his 
working which was meant to obscure it, and so with clear 
and unoffended sight beholding him for ever, according to 
the written promise, — Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God. 

* Plato, PliEedrus, § 9. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 179 



THE BEST KIXD OF LIBERTY. 



Men may be beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cat- 
tle, slaughtered like summer flies, and yet remain in one sense, 
and that the best sense, free. But to smother their souls 
within them, to make the flesh and skin, which, after the 
worms work on it, is to see God, into leathern thongs to yoke 
machinery with — this is to be slave-masters indeed ; and there 
might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords' 
lightest words were worth men's lives, and though the blood 
of the vexed husbandman dropped in the furrows of her 
fields, than there is while the animation of her multitudes is 
sent like fuel to feed the factory smoke, and the strength of 
them is given daily to be wasted in the fineness of a web, or 
racked in the exactness of a line. 

I know not if a day is ever to come when the nature of 
right freedom will be understood, and when men will see, 
that to obey another man, to labour for him, yield reverence 
to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is often the best 
kind of liberty, — liberty from care. 



INFLUENCE OF ART ON RELIGION. 

Much attention has lately been directed to the subject of 
religious art, and we aie tiow in possession of all kinds of 
interpretations and classifications of it, and of the leading 
facts of its history. But the greatest question of all con- 
nected w^ith it remains entirely unanswered, What good did 
it do to real religion ? There is no subject into which I should 
so much rejoice to see a serious and conscientious inquiry 
instituted as this ; an inquiry, neither undertaken in artistical 



160 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

enthusiasm nor in monkish sympathy, but dogged, merciless, 
and fearless. I love the religious art of Italy as well as most 
men, but there is a Avide difference between loving it as a 
manifestation of individual feeling, and looking to it as an 
instrument of popular benefit. I have not knowledge enough 
to form even the shadow of an opinion on this latter point, 
and I should be most grateful to any one who would put it 
in my power to do so. There are, as it seems to me, three 
distinct questions to be considered : the first. What has been 
the effect of external splendour on the genuineness and 
earnestness of Christian worship ? the second, What the use 
of pictorial or sculptural representation in the communication 
of Christian historical knowledge, or excitement of affection- 
ate imagination ? the third. What the influence of the practice 
of religious art on the life of tlie artist ? 

In answering these inquiries, we should have to consider 
separately every collateral influence and circumstance ; and, 
by a most subtle analysis, to eliminate the real effect of art 
from the effects of the abuses with which it was associated. 
This could be done only by a Christian ; not a man who 
would fall in love with a sweet colour or sweet expression, but 
who would look for true faith and consistent life as the object 
of all. It never has been done yet, and the question remains 
a subject of Tain and endless contention between parties of 
opposite prejudices and temperaments. 



LOSS. 



There is no subject of thought more melancholy, more won- 
derful, than the way in which God permits so often His best 
gifts to be trodden under foot of men, His richest treasures 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 181 

to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest influences of His 
Spirit, given but once in the world's history, to be quenched 
and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not 
wonder at what men Suffer, but I wonder often at what tliey 
Lose. We may see how good rises out of pain and evil ; but 
the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good comes of that? The 
iVuit struck to the earth before its ripeness ; the glowing life 
and goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death ; the 
words, half spoken, choked upon the lips with clay for ever ; 
or, stranger than all, the whole majesty of humanity raised to 
its fulness, and every gift and power necessary for a given 
purpose, at a given moment, centred in one man, and all this 
perfected blessing permitted to be refused, perverted, crushed, 
cast aside by those who need it most, — the city which is Not 
set on a hill, the candle that giveth light to None that are in 
the house : — these are the heaviest mysteries of this strange 
world, and, it seems to me, those which mark its curse the 
most. 



I have seen, when the thunderclouds came down on those 
Italian hills, and all their crags were dipped in the dark, ter- 
rible purple, as if the winepress of the wrath of God had 
stained their mountain-raiment — I have seen the hail fall in 
Italy till the forest branches stood stripped and bare as if 
blasted by the locust ; but the white hail never fell from those 
clouds of heaven as the black hail will fall from the clouds of 
hell, if ever one breath of Italian life stirs again in the streets 
of Verona. 

Sad as you will feel this to be, I do not say that you can 



182 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

directly prevent it ; you cannot drive the Austrians out of 
Italy, nor prevent them from building forts wliere they 
choose.* 

* The reader can hardly but remember Mrs. Browning's beautiful appeal 
for Italy, made on the occasion of the first great Exhibition of Art in 
England : — 

Magi of the east and of the west, 

Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent ! — 

What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest ? 

Tour hands have worked well. Is your courage spent 

In handwork only ? Have you nothing best, 

"Which generous souls may perfect and present, 

And He shall thank the givers for ? no light 

Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor, 

Who sit in darkness when it is not night ? 

No cure for wicked children? Christ, — no cure, 

No help for women, sobbing out of sight 

Because men made the laws ? — ^no brothel-lure 

Burnt out by popular lightnings ? Hast thou found 

No remedy, my England, for such woes ? 

No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, 

No caU back for the exiled ? no repose, 

Russia, for knouted Poles worked under ground, 

And gentle ladies bleached among the snows ? 

No mercy for the slave, America ? 

No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France ? 

Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. 

No pity, world 1 no tender utterance 

Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way 

For poor Italia, baffled by mischance ? 

gracious nations, give some ear to me 1 

You all go to your Fair, and I am one 

Who at the roadside of humanity 

Beseech your alms, — God's justice to be done, 

So prosper ! 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 183 



DANTE AND SPENSEE. 

By the form or name of ojDposed vice, we may often ascer- 
tain, with much greater accuracy than would otherwise be 
possible, the particular idea of the contrary virtue in the mind 
of the w^riter or painter. Thus, when opposed to Prudence, 
or Prudentia, on the one side, we find Folly, or Stultitia, on 
the other, it shows that the virtue understood by Prudence, 
is not the mere guiding or cardinal virtue, but the Heavenly 
Wisdom,* opposed to that folly which " hath said in its heart, 
there is no God;" and of which it is said, "the thought of 
foolishness is sin ;" and again, " Such as be foolish shall not 
stand in thy sight." This folly is personified, in early paint- 
ing and illumination, by a half-naked man, greedily eating an 
apple or other fruit, and brandishing a club ; showing that 
sensuality and violence are the two principal characteristics 
of Foolishness, and lead into atheism. The figure, in early 
Psalters, always forms the letter D, which commences the 
fifty-third Psalm, " Dixit insipiens.'''' 

In reading Dante, this mode of reasoning from contraries 
is a great help, for his philosophy of the vices is the only one 
which admits of classification ; his descriptions of virtue, 
while they include the ordinary formal divisions, are far too 
profound and extended to be brought under definition. 
Every line of the " Paradise" is full of the most exquisite and 
spiritual expressions of Christian truth ; and that poem is only 
less read than the " Inferno" because it requires far greater 
attention, and, perhaps, for its full enjoyment, a holier heart. 

His system in the " Inferno" is briefly this. The whole 
nether world is divided into seven circles, deep within deep, 
in each of which, according to its depth, severer punishment 

* Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek pliilosophers under the 
terms (ppovriiii aofpia^ and emari'inn', and part of the idea of (TiO(ppoavi/r], 



184 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

is inflicted. These seven circles, reckonings them downwards, 
are thus allotted : 

1. To those who have lived virtuously, but knew not Christ. 

2. To Lust. 

3. To Gluttony. 

4. To Avarice and Extravagance. 

5. To Anger and Sorrow. 

6. To Heresy. 

v. To Violence and Fraud. 

This seventh circle is divided into two parts ; of which the 
first, reserved for those who have been guilty of Violence, is 
again divided into three, apportioned severally to those who 
have committed, or desire to commit, violence against their 
neighbours, against themselves, or against God. 

The lowest hell, reserved for the punishment of Fraud, is 
itself divided into ten circles, wherein are severally punished 
the sins of, — 

1. Betraying women. 

2. Flattery. 

3. Simony. 

4. False prophecy. 

5. Peculation. 

6. Hyj^ocrisy. 
1. Theft. 

8. False counsel. 

9. Schism and Imposture. 

10. Treachery to those who repose entire trust in the 
traitor. 

There is, perhaps, nothing more notable in this most inter- 
esting system than the profound truth couched under the 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 185 

attachment of so terrible a penalty to sadness or sorrow. It 
is true that Idleness does not elsewhere appear in the scheme, 
and is evidently intended to be included in the guilt of sad- 
ness by the word " accidioso ;" but the main meaning of the 
poet is to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, according both 
to St. Paul's command, and Isaiah's promise, "Thou meetest 
him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness."* I do not 
know words that might with more benefit be borne with us, 
and set in our hearts momentarily against the minor regrets 
and rebelliousnesses of life, than these simple ones : 



" Tristi fammo 
del sol s' allegr 
Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra." 



Nel aer dolce, clie del sol s' allegra, 



" We once were sad, 
In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun, 
Now in these murky settlings are we sad."t Cart. 

The virtue usually opposed to this vice of sullenness is 
Alacritas, uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness. 
Spenser has cheerfulness simply, in his description, never 
enough to be loved or praised, of the virtues of Womanhood, 
first, feminineness or womanhood in specialty ; then, — ■ 

"Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse, 
Ne ever durst her eyes from ground upreare, 
Ne ever once did looke up from her desse,| 

* Isa. Lxiv. 5. 

f I liardlj thiuk it necessary to point out to the reader the association 
between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to explain any appear- 
ance of contradiction between passages in which I have had to oppose 
sacred pcnsivcness to unholy mirth, .' ad those in which I have to oppose 
sacred cheerfulness to unholy sorrow. 

X " Desse," seat. 



186 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

As if some blame of evill she did feare 
That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare : 
And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed, 
Whose eyes, hke twinkling stars in evening cleare, 
"Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chaced. 

" And next to her sate sober Moclestie, 
Holding her hand upon her gentle hart ; 
And her against, sate comely Curtesie, 
That unto every person knew her part ; 
And her before was seated overthwart 
Soft Silence, and Submisse Obedience, 
Both hnckt together never to dispart." 

Another notable point in Dante's system is the intensity of 
uttermost jjunishment given to treason, the peculiar sin of 
Italy, and that to which, at this day, she attributes her own 
misery with her own lips. An Italian, questioned as to the 
causes of the failure of the campaign of 1848, always makes 
one answer, " We were betrayed ;" and the most melancholy 
feature of the present state of Italy is principally this, that 
she does not see that, of all causes to which failure might be 
attributed, this is at once the most disgraceful, and the most 
hopeless. In fact, Dante seems to me to have written almost 
prophetically, for the instruction of modern Italy, and chiefly 
so in the sixth canto of the " Purgatorio." 

The system of Spenser is unfinished, and exceedingly com- 
plicated, the same vices and virtues occurring under diflerent 
forms in different places, in order to show their different rela- 
tions to each other. I shall not therefore give any general 
sketch of it, but only refer to the particular personification 
of each virtue.* The peculiar superiority of his system is in 

* The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half estimated, 
because few persons take the pains to think out its meaning. No time 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 187 

its exquisite setting forth of Chastity under the figure of 
Britomart ; not monkish chastity, but that of the purest 
Love. In completeness of personification no one can approach 
him ; not even in Dante do I remember anything quite so 
great as the description of the Captain of the Lusts of the 
Flesh : 

" As pale and wan as ashes was his looke ; 
His body lean and meagre as a rake ; 
And skin all withered like a dryed rooke ; 
Thereto as cold and drery as a snake ; 
That seemd to tremble evermore, and quake : 
All in a canvas thin he was bedight, 
And girded with a belt of twisted brake : 
Upon his head he wore an helmet hght, 
Made of a dead mans skull." 

He rides ujDon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, bent ; 

" And many arrows under his right side, 
Headed with flint, and fethers bloody dide." 

The horror and the truth of this are beyond everything 
that I know, out of the pages of Inspiration. Note the 
heading of the arrows with flint, because sharper and more 
subtle in the edge than steel, and because steel might consume 
away with rust, but flint not; and consider in the whole 
description how the wasting away of body and soul together, 
and the coldness of the heart, which unholy fire has consumed 
into ashes, and the loss of all power, and the kindling of all 
tenible impatience, and the implanting of thorny and inex- 
tricable griefs, are set forth by the various images, the belt 
of brake, the tiger steed, and the li(/ht helmet, girding the 
head with death. 

devoted to profane literature will be better rewarded than that spent ear- 
nestly on Spenser. 



188 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Spenser's Faith (Fidelia) is S23iritual and noble : 

'' She was araied all in lilly white, 
And in her right hand bore a cup of gold, 
With wine and water fild up to the hight, 
In which a serpent did himselfe enfold, 
That horrour made to all that did behold ; 
But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood : 
And in her other hand she fast did hold 
A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood ; 
Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood." 

Spenser's Gluttony is more than usually fine : 

" His belly was upblowne with luxury, 
And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne, 
And like a crane his necke was long and fyne, 
Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast. 
For want whereof poore people oft did pyne." 

The Envy of Spenser is fine; joining the idea of fury, in 
the wolf on which he rides, with that of corruption on his 
lips, and of discoloration or distortion in the whole mind : 

'' Malicious Envy rode 
Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw 
Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode, 
That all the poison ran about his jaw. 
All in a JdrtJe of discolour d say 
He clothed ivas, ypayntedfall of eies, 
And in his bosome secretly there lay 
An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes 
In many folds, and mortall sting imply es." 

Spenser has analysed this vice (Pride) with great care. 
He first represents it as the Pride of life ; that is to say, the 
pride which runs in a deep under current through all the 
thoughts and acts of men. As such, it is a feminine vice, 



PRECIOUS THOUGH'i'S. 189 

directly opposed to Holiness, and mistress of a castle called 
the House of Pryde, and her chariot is driven by Satan, with 
a team of beasts, ridden by the mortal sins. In the throne 
chamber of her palace she is thus described : 

" So proud she sliyned in her princely state, 
Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne ; 
And sitting high, for lowly she did hate : 
Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne 
A dreadfull dragon with an hideous trayne ; 
And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright, 
Wherein her face she often vewed fayne." 



KXOWING AND DOrNG. 

Some years ago, in conversation with an artist Avhose 
works, perhaps, alone, in the present day, miite perfection of 
drawing with resplendence of colour, the w^riter made some 
inquiry respecting the general means by which this latter 
quality was most easily to be attained. The reply was as 
concise as it was comprehensive — "Knoww^hat you have to 
do, and do it" — comprehensive, not only as regarded the 
branch of art to which it temporarily applied, but as express- 
ing the great principle of success in every direction of human 
effort ; for I believe that failure is less frequently attributable 
to either insuflSciency of means or impatience of labour, than 
to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done ; 
and therefore, w^hile it is properly a subject of ridicule, and 
sometimes of blame, that men propose to themselves a per- 
fection of any kind, which reason, temperately consulted, 
might have shown to be impossible with the means at their 



190 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

comniand, it is a more dangerous error to permit the conside- 
ration of means to interfere with om- conception, or, as is not 
impossible, even hinder our acknowledgment of goodness 
and perfection in themselves. And this is the more cautiously 
to be remembered ; because, while a man's sense and con- 
science, aided by Revelation, are always enough, if earnestly 
directed, to enable him to discover what is right, neither his 
sense, nor conscience, nor feeling, are ever enough, because 
they are not intended, to determine for him what is possible. 
He knows neither his own strength, nor that of his fellow^s, 
neither the exact dependence to be placed on his allies nor 
resistance to be expected from his opponents. These are 
questions respecting which passion may warp his conclusions, 
and ignorance must limit them; but it is his own fault if 
either interfere with the apprehension of duty, or the acknow- 
ledgment of right. And, as far as I have taken cognizance 
of the causes of the many failures to which the efforts of 
intelligent men are liable, more especially in matters political, 
they seem to me more largely to spring from this single error 
than from aU others, that the inquiry into the doubtful, and in 
some sort inexplicable, relations of capability, chance, resists 
ance, and inconvenience, invariably precedes, even if it do 
not altogether supersede, the determination of what is abso- 
lutely desirable and just. Nor is it any wonder that some- 
times the too cold calculation of our powers should reconcile 
us too easily to our shortcomings, and even lead us into the 
fatal error of supposing that our conjectural utmost is in 
itself well, or, in other words, that the necessity of offences 
renders them inoffensive. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 191 



THE POWER OF INTELLECT. 

The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy is that 
of a mind and body in some sort too weak to deal fully with 
what is before them or upon them ; borne away, or over- 
clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion ; and it is a more or 
less noble state, according to the force of the emotion which 
has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is not 
morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no 
strength of feeling to warp them ; and it is in general a sign 
of higher capacity and stand in the ranks of being, that the 
emotions should be strong enough to vanquish, partly, the 
intellect, and make it beheve what they choose. But it is 
still a grander condition when the intellect also rises, till it is 
strong enough to assert its rule against, or together wdth, the 
utmost efforts of the passions ; and the whole man stands in 
an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no 
wdse evaporating ; even if he melts, losing none of his weight. 

So, then, we have the three ranks : the man who perceives 
rightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose 
is very accurately the primrose, because he does not love it. 
Then, secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he 
feels, and to whom the primrose is anything else than a prim- 
rose : a star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken 
maiden. 



VOLTTNTAEILT ADMITTED RESTRAINTS. 

The highest greatness and the highest wisdom are shown, 
the first by a noble submission to, the second by a thoughtful 
providence for, certain voluntarily admitted restraints. No- 



192 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

thing is more evident than this, in that supreme government 
which is the example, as it is the centre of all others. The 
Divine Wisdom is, and can be, shown to us only in its meet- 
ing and contending with the difficulties wiiich are voluntarily, 
and for the sake of that contest^ admitted by the Divine Om- 
nipotence : and these difficulties, observe, occm' in the form 
of natural laws or ordinances which might, at many times 
and in countless ways, be infringed with apparent advantage, 
but which are never infringed, whatever costly ari'angements 
or adaptations their observance may necessitate for the accom- 
plishment of given purposes. The example most apposite to 
our present subject is the structure of the bones of animals. 
No reason can be given, I believe, why the system of the 
higher animals should not have been made capable, as that 
of the Infusoria is, of secreting flint, instead of phosphate of 
lime, or more naturally still, carbon ; so framing the bones 
of adamant at once. The elephant or rhinoceros, had the 
earthy part of their bones been made of diamond, might have 
been as agile and light as grasshoppers, and other animals 
might have been framed far more magnificently colossal than 
any that walk the earth. In other worlds we may, perhaps, 
see such creations ; a creation for every element, and elements 
infinite. But the architecture of animals Aere, is appointed 
by God to be a marble architecture, not a flint nor adamant 
architecture ; and all manner of expedients are adopted to 
attain the utmost degree of strength and size possible under 
that great limitation. The jaw of the ichthyosaurus is pieced 
and riveted, the leg of the megatherium is a foot thick, and 
the head of the myodon has a double skull ; we, in our wis- 
dom, should, doubtless, have given the lizard a steel jaw, 
and the myodon a cast-iron head-piece, and forgotten the 
great principle to which all creation bears witness, that order 
and system are nobler things than power. But God shows 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 193 

US ill Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative 
perfection, but even tlie perfection of Obedience — an obe- 
dience to Plis own laws: and in the cumbrous movement of 
those unwieldiest of His creatures we are reminded, even in 
His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the 
human creature " that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth 
not." 



PROGEESS I]S^ KNOWLEDGE. 

If we consider that, till within the last fifty years, the 
nature of the ground we tread on, of the air we breathe, and 
of the light by which we see, were not so much as conjec- 
turally conceived by us ; that the duration of the globe, and 
the races of animal life by which it was inhabited, are just 
beginning to be apprehended ; and that the scope of the 
magnificent science which has revealed them, is as yet so 
little received by the public mind, that presumption and igno- 
rance are still permitted to raise their voices against it unre- 
buked ; that perfect veracity in the representation of general 
nature by art has never been attempted until the present day, 
and has in the present day been resisted with all the energy 
of the popular voice ; * that the simplest problems of social 
science are yet so little understood, as that doctrines of 
liberty and equality can be ojienly preached, and so success- 
fully as to affect the whole body of the civilized world with 
apparently incurable disease ; that the first principles of com- 
merce were acknowledged by the English Parliament only a 
few months ago, in its free trade measures, and are still so 

* In tho works of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. 
9 



194 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

little understood by the million, that no nation dares to abo- 
lish its custom-houses ; * that the simplest principles of policy 
are still not so much as stated, far less received, and that civil- 
ized nations persist in the belief that the subtlety and dis- 
honesty vrhich they know to be ruinous in dealings between 
man and man, are serviceable in dealings between multitude 
and multitude ; finally, that the scope of the Christian reli- 
gion, which we have been taught for two thousand years, is 
still so little conceived by us, that we suppose the laws of 
charity and of self-sacrifice bear upon individuals in all their 
social relations, and yet do not bear upon nations in any of 
their political relations ; — when, I say, we thus review the 
depth of simplicity in which the human race are still plunged 
with respect to all that it most profoundly concerns them to 
know, and which might, by them, with most ease have been 
ascertained, we can hardly determine how far back on the 
narrow path of husnan progress we ought to place the gene- 
ration to which we belong, how far the swaddling clothes are 
unwound from us, and childish things beginning to be put away. 
On the other hand, a power of obtaining veracity in the 
representation of material and tangible things, which, within 
certain limits and conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been 



* Observe, I speak of these various principles as self-evident, only under 
the present circumstances of the world, not as if they had always been so ; 
and I call them now self-evident, not merely because they seem so to my- 
self, but because they are felt to be so likewise by all the men in whom I 
place most trust. But granting that they are not so, then their very dis- 
putability proves the state of infancy above alleged, as characteristic of the 
world. For I do not suppose that any Christian reader will doubt the first 
great truth, that whatever facts or laws are important to mankind, God has 
made ascertainable by mankind ; and that as the decision of all these ques- 
tions is of vital importance to the race, that decision must have been long 
ago arrived at, unless they were still in a state of childhood. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 195 

placed in the hands of all men,* almost without labour. The 
foundation of every natural science is now at last firmly laid, 
not a day passing without some addition of buttress and pin- 
nacle to their already magnificent fabric. Social theorems, 
if fiercely agitated, are therefore the more likely to be at last 
determined, so that they never can be matters of question 
more. Human life has been in some sense prolonged by the 
increased powers of locomotion, and an almost limitless power 
of converse. Finally, there is hardly any serious mind in 
Europe but is occupied, more or less, in the investigation of 
the questions which have so long paralyzed the strength of 
religious feeling, and shortened the dominion of religious faith. 
And we may therefore at least look upon ourselves as so far 
in a definite state of progress, as to justify our caution in 
guarding against the dangers incident to every period of 
change, and especially to that from childhood into youth. 

Those dangers appear, in the main, to be twofold ; consist- 
ing partly in the pride of vain knowledge, partly in the pur- 
suit of vain pleasure. 



IGNOBLE EMOTION. 

A Turk declares that " God is great," when he means only 
that he himself is lazy. The " heaven is bright " of many 

* I intended to have given a sketch in this place (above referred to) of 
tlie probable results of the daguerreotype and calotype within the next few 
years, in modifying the application of the engraver's art, but I have not 
had time to complete the experiments necessary to enable me to speak with 
certainty. Of one thing, however, I have little doubt, that an infinite ser- 
vice will soon be done to a large body of our engravers ; namely, the mak- 
ing them draughtsmen. 



196 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

vulgar painters, has precisely the same amount of signification ; 
it means that they know nothing — will do nothing — are with- 
out thought — without care — without passion. They will not 
walk the earth, nor watch the ways of it, nor gather the 
flowers of it. They will sit in the shade, and only assert that 
A^ery perceiDtible, long-ascertained fact, " heaven is bright." 
And as it may be asserted basely, so it may be accepted basely. 
Many of our capacities for receiving noblest emotion are 
abused, in mere idleness, for pleasure's sake, and people take 
the excitement of a solemn sensation as they do that of a 
strong drink. Thus the abandoned court of Louis XIV. had 
on fast days its sacred concerts, doubtless entering in some 
degree into the religious expression of the music, and thus 
idle and frivolous women at the present day will weep at an 
oratorio. 



SACKED ASSOCTATIOXS WITH OLIVE-TREES. 

I do not want painters to tell me any scientific facts about 
olive-trees. But it had been well for them to have felt and 
seen the olive-tree ; to have loved it for Christ's sake, partly 
also for the helmed Wisdom's sake which was to the heathen 
in some sort as that nobler Wisdom which stood at God's 
right hand, when He founded the earth and established the 
heavens. To have loved it, even to the hoary dimness of its 
delicate foliage, subdued and faint of hue, as if the ashes of 
the Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for ever ; and to 
have traced, line by line, the gnarled writhing of its intricate 
branches, and the pointed fretwork of its light and narrow 
leaves, inlaid on the blue field of the sky, and the small, rosy- 
white stars of its spring blossoming, and the beads of sable 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 197 

fruit scattered by autumn along its topmost boughs — the 
right, in Israel, of the stranger, the fatherless, and the 
widow, — and, more than all, the softness of the mantle, silver 
grey, and tender like the down on a bird's breast, with 
which, far away, it veils the undulation of the mountains. 



SIMPLICITY. 

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated ; 
far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the 
proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We 
shall find, in the course of our investigation, that beauty and 
difficulty go together; and that they are only mean and 
paltry difficulties which it is wrong or contemptible to wres- 
tle with. Be it remembered then — Power is never wasted. 
Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in 
proportion to its own dignity and exertion ; and the faculty 
of perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is 
the faculty of perceiving excellence. 



LOVE OF CHANGE. 



We must note carefully what distinction there is between a 
healthy and a diseased love of change ; for as it was in 
healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it 
was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it 
was destroyed. In order to understand this clearly, it will 
be necessary to consider the different ways in which change 
and monotony are presented to us in nature ; both having 



198 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

their use, like darkness and light, and the one incapable of 
being enjoyed without the other : change being most delight- 
ful after some prolongation of monotony, as light appears 
most brilliant after the eyes have been for some time closed. 

I believe that the true relations of monotony and change 
may be most simply understood by observing them in music. 
We may therein notice, first, that there is a sublimity and 
majesty in monotony which there is not in rapid or frequent 
variation. This is true throughout all nature. The greater 
part of the sublimity of the sea depends on its monotony ; so 
also that of desolate moor and mountain scenery ; and espe- 
cially the sublimity of motion, as in the quiet, unchanged fall 
and rise of an engine beam. So also there is sublimity in 
darkness which there is not in light. 

Again, monotony after a certain time, or beyond a certain 
degree, becomes either uninteresting or intolerable, and the 
musician is obliged to break it in one or two ways : either 
while the air or passage is perpetually repeated, its notes are 
variously enriched and harmonized; or else, after a certain 
number of repeated passages, an entirely new passage is 
introduced, which is more or less delightful according to 
the length of the previous monotony. Nature, of course, 
uses both these kinds of variation perpetually. The sea- 
waves, resembling each other in general mass, but none like 
its brother in minor divisions and curves, are a monotony of 
the first kind ; the great plain, broken by an emergent rock 
or clump of trees, is a monotony of the second. 

Farther: in order to the enjoyment of the change in either 
case, a certain degiee of patience is required from the hearer 
or observer. In the first case, he must be satisfied to endure 
with patience the recurrence of the gi"eat masses of sound or 
form, and to seek for entertainment in si careful watchfulness 
of the minor details. In the second case, he must bear 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. ] 99 

patiently the infliction of tlie monotony for some moments, in 
order to feel the full refreshment of the change. This is true 
even of the shortest musical passage in which the element of 
monotony is employed. In cases of more majestic mono- 
tony, the patience required is so considerable that it becomes 
a kind of pain, — a price paid for the future pleasure. 

Again : the talent of the composer is not in the monotony, 
but in the changes : he may show feeling and taste by his use 
of monotony in certain places or degrees ; that is to say, by 
his various employment of it ; but it is always in the new 
arrangement or invention that his intellect is shown, and not 
in the monotony which relieves it. 

Lastly : if the pleasure of change be too often repeated, it 
ceases to be delightful, for then change itself becomes mono- 
tonous, and we are driven to seek delight in extreme and 
fantastic degrees of it. This is the diseased love of change 
of which we have above spoken. 

From these fxcts we may gather generally that monotony 
is, and ought to be, in itself painful to us, just as darkness is ; 
that an architecture which is altogether monotonous is a dark 
or dead architecture; and, of those who love it, it may be 
truly said, " they love darkness rather than light." But 
monotony in certain measure, used in order to give value to 
change, and, above all, that transparent monotony which, 
like the shadows of a great painter, suflers all manner of 
dimly suggested form to be seen through the body of it, is an 
essential in archie. ctural as in all other composition ; and the 
endurance of monotony has about the same place in a healthy 
mind that the endurance of darkness has : that is to say, as a 
strong intellect will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm 
and twilight, and in the broken and mysterious lights that 
gleam among them, rather than in mere brilliancy and glare, 
while a frivolous mind Avill dread the shadow and the storm : 



200 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

and as a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of 
fortune in order to reach greater eminence of power or feli- 
city, while an inferior man wdll not pay the price; exactly in 
like manner a great mind will accept, or even delight in, 
monotony which would be wearisome to an inferior intellect, 
because it has more patience and power of expectation, and 
is ready to pay the full price for the great future pleasure of 
change. But in all cases it is not that the noble nature loves 
monotony, any more than it loves darkness or pain. But it 
can bear with it, and receives a high pleasure in the endurance 
or patience, a pleasure necessary to the well-being of this 
world ; while those who will not submit to the temporary 
sameness, but rush from one change to another, gradually 
dull the edge of change itself, and bring a shadow and 
weariness over the whole world from which there is no more 
escape. 



THE MAN OF GENIUS. 



His science is inexpressibly subtle, directly taught him by 
his Maker, not in anywise communicable orimitable. Neither 
can any written or definitely observable laws enable us to do 
any great thing. It is possible, by measuring and administer- 
ing quantities of colour, to paint a room wall so that it shall 
not hurt the eye ; but there are no laws by observing which 
we can become Titians. It is possible so to measure and admi- 
nister syllables, as to construct harmonious verse ; but there 
are no laws by which we can write Iliads. Out of the poem 
or the picture, once produced, men may elicit laws by the 
volume, and study them with advantage, to the better under- 
standing of the existing poem or picture; but no more write 



PllKCIOUS THOUGHTS. 201 

or paint another, than by discovermg laws of vegetation they 
can make a tree to grow. And therefore, wheresoever we 
find the system and formality of rules much dwelt upon, and 
spoken of as anything else than a help for children, there we 
may be sure that noble art is not even understood, far less 
reached. And thus it was with all the common and public 
mind in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The greater 
men, indeed, broke through the thorn hedges ; and, though 
much time was lost by the learned among them in writing 
Latin verses and anagrams, and arranging the framework of 
quaint sonnets and dexterous syllogisms, still they tore their 
Avay through the sapless thicket by force of intellect or of 
piety ; for it was not possible that, either in litei-ature or in 
painting, rules could be received by any strong mind, so as 
materially to interfere with its originality ; and the crabbed 
discipline and exact scholarship became an advantage to the 
men who could pass through and despise them ; so that in 
spite of the rules of the drama we had Shakspeare, and in 
spite of the rules of art we had Tintoret, — both of them, to 
this day, doing perpetual violence to the vulgar scholarship 
and dim-eyed proprieties of the multitude. 



THE Cr^SSICAL. 

On the absence of belief in a good supreme Being, follows, 
necessarily, the habit of looking to ourselves for suprem.o 
judgment in all matters, and for supreme government. 
Hence, first, the irreverent habit of judgment instead of ad- 
miration. It is generally expressed under the justly degrad- 
ing term " good taste." 

Hence, in the second place, tlie habit of restraint or self- 

9* 



202 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

government (instead of impulsive and limitless obedience), 
based upon pride, and involving, for the most part, scorn of 
the helpless and weak, and respect only for the orders of men 
who have been trained to this habit of self-government. 
Wlience the title classical, from the Latin classicus. 

The school is, therefore, generally to be characterized as 
that of taste and restraint. As the school of taste, every- 
thing is, in its estimation, beneath it, so as to be tasted or 
tested ; not above it, to be thankfully received. Nothing was- 
to be fed ujion as bread ; but only palated as a dainty. This 
spirit has destroyed art since the close of tlie sixteenth cen- 
tury, and nearly destroyed French literature, our English 
literature being at the same time severely depressed, and our 
education (except in bodily strength) rendered nearly nuga- 
tory by it, so far as it affects common-place minds. It is not 
possible that the classical spirit should ever take possession of 
a mind of the highest order. Pope is, as far as I know, the 
greatest man who ever fell strongly under its influence ; and 
though it spoiled half his work, he broke through it conti- 
nually into true enthusiasm and tender thought.* Again, as 
the school of reserve, it refuses to allow itself in any violent 
or " spasmodic" passion ; the schools of literature which have 
been in modern times called " spasmodic," being reactionary 
against it. The word, though an ugly one, is quite accurate, 
the most spasmodic books in the world being Solomon's Song, 
Job, and Isaiah. 

* Cold-hearted, I have called him. He was so in writing the Pastorals, 
of which I then spoke ; but in after life his errors were those of his time, 
his wisdom was his own ; it would be weU if we also made it ours. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 203 



THE MOTHER-NATION". 



I believe that no Christian nation has any business to see 
one of its members in distress without helping him, though, 
perhaps, at the same time punishing him : help, of course — 
in nine cases out of ten — meaning guidance, much more than 
gift, and, therefore, interference with liberty. When a pea- 
sant mother sees one of her careless children fall into a ditch, 
her first proceeding is to pull him out ; her second, to box his 
ears ; her tliird, ordinarily, to lead him carefully a little way 
by the hand, or send him home for the rest of the day. The 
child usually cries, and very often would clearly prefer 
remaining in the ditch ; and if he understood any of the 
terms of politics, would certainly express resentment at the 
interference with his individual liberty : but the mother has 
done her duty. Whereas the usual call of the mother-nation 
to any of her children, under such circumstances, has lately 
been nothing more than the foxhunter's, — " Stay still there ; 
I shall clear you." And if we always coiild clear them, their 
requests to be left in muddy independence might be some- 
times allowed by kind people, or their cries for help disdained 
by unkind ones. But we can't clear "them. The whole nation 
is, in fact, bound together, as men are by ropes on a glacier 
— if one falls, the rest must either lift him or drag him along 
with them as dead weight, not without much increase of dan- 
ger to themselves. And the law of right being manifestly in 
this, as, whether manifestly or not, it is always, the law of 
prudence, the only question is, how this wholesome help and 
interference are to be administered. 



204 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



JUSTICE, MERCY, AND TRUTH. 



Every i^erson who tries to buy an article for less than its 
proper value, or who tries to sell it at more than its proper 
value — every consumer who keeps a tradesman waiting for his 
money, and every tradesman who bribes a consumer to extra- 
vagance by credit, is helping forward, according to his own 
measure of power, a system of baseless and dishonourable 
commerce, and forcing his country down into poverty and 
shame. And people of moderate means and average powers 
of mind would do far more real good by merely carrying out 
stern principles of justice and honesty in common matters of 
trade, than by the most ingenious schemes of extended phi- 
lanthropy, or vociferous declarations of theological doctrine. 
There are three w^eighty matters of the law — justice, mercy, 
and truth ; and of these the Teacher puts truth last, because 
that cannot be known but by a course of acts of justice and 
love. But men put, in all their efforts, truth first, because 
they mean by it tlieir own opinions ; and thus, while the 
world has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the 
cause of what they call truth, it has few who will suffer even 
a little inconvenience in that of justice and mercy. 



PROPHETIC DESIGNERS. 

The nations whose chief support was in the chase, whose 
chief interest was in the battle, whose chief pleasure was in 
the banquet, would take small care respecting the shapes of 
leaves and flowers; and notice little in the forms of the forest 
trees which sheltered them, except the signs hidicative of the 
wood which would make the toughest lance, the closest roof, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 205 

ov the clearest fire. The affectionate ohservation of the grace 
and outward character of vegetation is the sure sign of a 
more tranquil and gentle existence, sustained b}^ the gifts, 
and gladdened by the splendour, of the earth. In that care- 
ful distinction of species, and richness of delicate and undis- 
turbed organization, which cliaracterize the Gothic design, 
there is the history of rural and thoughtful life, influenced by 
habitual tenderness, and devoted to subtle inquiry; and every 
discriminating and delicate touch of the chisel, as it romids 
the petal or guides the branch, is a pro2:)hecy of the develop- 
ment of the entire body of the natural sciences, beginning 
with that of medicine, of the recovery of hterature, and the 
establishment of the most necessary principles of domestic 
wisdom and national peace. 



THE FOOD OF THE SOUL. 

That sentence of Genesis, " I have given thee every green 
herb for meat," like all the rest of the book, has a profound 
symbolical as well as a literal meaning. It is not merely the 
nourishment of the body, but the food of the soul, that is 
intended. The green herb is, of all nature, that which is 
most essential to the healthy spiritual life of man. Most of 
us do not need fine scenery ; the precipice and the mountain 
peak are not intended to be seen by all men, — perhaps their 
power is greatest over those who are imaccustonied to them. 
But trees, and fields, and flowers were made for all, and are 
necessary for all. God has connected the labour which is essen- 
tial to the bodily sustenance, with the pleasures which are 
healthiest for the heart ; and while He made the ground stub- 
born, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms fair. 



206 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher 
honour than to bear the image and recall the memory of that 
grass of the field which is, at once, the type and the support 
of its existence ; the goodly building is then most gloiious 
when it is sculptured into the likeness of the leaves of Para- 
dise ; and the great Gothic sjDirit, as we showed it to be noble 
in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature ; it is, 
indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon 
the face of the waters, — but like her in this also, " Lo, in her 

MOUTH WAS AN OLIVE BRANCH, PLUCKED OFF." 



DIVISION or LABOUR. 

Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly. 
It is verily this degradation of the operative into a machine, 
which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading the 
mass of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, destruc- 
tive struggling for a freedom of which they cannot explain 
the nature to themselves. Their universal outciy against 
wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them either 
by the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. 
These do much, and have done much in all ages ; but the 
foundations of society were never yet shaken as they are at 
this day. It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have 
no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and 
therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is 
not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, 
but they cannot endure their own ; for they feel that the kind 
of lal^our to which they are condemned is verily a degrading 
one, and makes them less than men. Never had the upper 
classes so much sympathy with the lower, or charity for them, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 207 

as they have at this day, and yet never were they so much 
hated by them : for, of old, the separation between the noble 
and the poor was merely a wall built by law ; now it is a 
veritable difference in level of standing, a precipice between 
upper and lower grounds in the field of humanity, and there 
is pestilential air at the bottom of it. I know not if a day is 
ever to come when the nature of right freedom will be under- 
stood, and when men will see that to obey another man, to 
labour for him, yield reverence to him or to his place, is not 
slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty, — liberty from 
care. The man who says to one. Go, and he goeth, and to 
another. Come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense 
of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him. The 
movements of the one are hindered by the burden on his 
shoulder; of the other, by the bridle on his hps : tlTere is no 
w^y by which the burden may be lightened ; but we need not 
suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield 
reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his 
disposal, is not slavery ; often, it is the noblest state in which 
a man can live in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence 
which is servile, that is to say, irrational or selfish : but there 
is also noble reverence, that is to say, reasonable and loving ; 
and a man is never so noble as when he is reverent in this 
kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of mere reason, 
so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in 
reality, most of the serf nature in him, — the Irish peasant who 
was lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket 
muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge ; or that old moun- 
tain servant who, 200 yeai's ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up 
his own life and the lives of his seven sons for his chief?* — 
and as each fell, calling foith his brother to the death, 

* Vide Preface to " Fair Maid of Perth." 



208 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

" Another for Hector ! " And therefore, in all ages and all 
countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men 
to each other, not only without complaint, but rejoicingly; 
and famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, 
have been borne willingly in the causes of masters and kings; 
for all these gifts of the heart ennobled the men who gave, 
not less than the men who received them, and nature 
prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their 
souls withering within them, nnthanked, to find their whole 
being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into 
a heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and weighed 
with its hammer strokes ; — this nature bade not, — this God 
blesses not, — this humanity for no long time is able to endure. 
We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the 
great civilized invention of the division of labour ; only we 
give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that 
is divided ; but the men : — Divided into mere segments of men 
— broken into small fragments and crumbs of life ; so that all 
the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not 
enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making 
the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a good 
and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day ; but 
if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were 
polis^hed, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before 
it can be discerned for what it is, — -we should think there 
might be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises 
from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace 
blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture every- 
thing there except men ; we blanch cotton, and strengthen 
steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery ; but to brighten, 
to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never 
enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to 
which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 209 

way : not by teaching nor preaclnng, for to teach them is but 
to show them their misery, and to preach to them, if we do 
nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met 
only by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, 
of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, 
and making them happy ; by a determined sacrifice of 
such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only 
by the degradation of the workman ; and by equally deter- 
mined demand for the products and results of healthy and 
ennobling labour. 

And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recog- 
nized, and this demand to be regulated ? Easily : by the 
observance of three broad and simple rules : 

1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not 
absolutely necessary, in the production of which Invention 
has no share. 

2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only 
for some practical or noble end. 

3. Xever encourage imitation or copying of any kind, 
except for the sake of preserving record of great works. 

The second of these principles is the only one which 
directly rises out of the consideration of our immediate sub- 
ject ; but I shall briefly explain the meaning and extent of the 
first also, reserving the enforcement of the third for another 
place. 

1. Never encourage the manufacture of anything not neces- 
sary, in the production of which invention has no share. 

For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnecessary, and 
there is no design or thought employed in their manufacture. 
They are formed by first drawing out the glass into rods ; 
these rods are chopped up into fragments of the size of beads 
by the human hand, and the fragments are then rounded in 
the furnace. The men who chop up the rods sit at their work 



210 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

all day, their hands vibrating with a perpetual and exquisitely- 
timed palsy, and the beads dropping beneath their vibration 
like hail. Neither they, nor the men who draw out the rods 
or fuse the fragments, have the smallest occasion for the use 
of any single human faculty; and every young lady, there- 
fore, who buys glass beads is engaged in the slave-trade, and 
in a much more cruel one than that which we have' so long 
been endeavouring to put down. 

But glass cups and vessels may become the subject of 
exquisite invention ; and if in buying these we pay for the 
invention, that is to say, for the beautiful form, or colour, or 
engraving, and not for mere finish of execution, we are doing 
good to humanity. 



THE MODEEX INFIDEL CKEED. 

Co-relative with the assertion, " There is a foolish God," is 
the assertion, " There is a brutish man." " As no laws but 
those of the Devil are practicable in the world, so no impulses 
but those of the brute " (says the modern political economist) 
" are appealable to in the world. Faith, generosity, honesty, 
zeal, and self-sacrifice are poetical phrases. None of these 
things can, in reality, be counted upon ; there is no truth in 
man which can be used as a moving or productive powei*. 
All motive force in him is essentially brutish, covetous, or 
contentious. His power is only power of prey : otherwise 
than the spider, he cannot design ; otherwise than the tiger, 
he cannot feed." This is the modern interpretation of that 
embarrassing article of the Creed, " the communion of saints." 

It has always seemed very strange to me, not indeed that 
this creed should have been adopted, it being the entirely 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 211 

necessary consequence of the pi-evious fundamental article ; — 
but that no one should ever seem to have any misgivings 
ibout it ; — that, practically, no one had seen how strong 
work icas done by man ; how either for hire, or for hatred, 
it never had been done ; and that no amount of pay had ever 
made a good soldier, a good teacher, a good artist, or a good 
svorkman. You pay your soldiers and sailors so many pence 
1 day, at which rated sum, one will do good fighting for you ; 
another, bad fighting. Pay as you will, the entire goodness 
dF the fighting depends, always, on its being done for nothing ; 
3r rather, less than nothing, in the expectation of no pay but 
ieatli. Examine the work of your s2Diritual teachers, and you 
tvill find the statistical law respecting them is, " The less pay, 
ihe better work." Examine also your writers and artists : for 
ien pounds you shall have a Paradise Lost, and for a plate of 
igs, a Durer drawing ; but for a million of money sterling, 
leither. Examine your men of science : paid by starvation, 
S^epler will discover the laws of the orbs of heaven for you ; 
—and, driven out to die in the street, Swammerdam shall 
liscover the laws of life for you — such hard terifiis do they 
nake with you, these brutish men, who can only be had for 
lire. 

Neither is good work ever done for hatred, any more than 
lire — but for love onlv. 



CONCESSION AND COMPANIONSHIP. 

The leaves, as we shall see immediately, are the feeders of 
he plant. Their own orderly habits of succession must not 
nterfere with their main business of finding food. Where 
he sun and air are the leaf must go, whether it be out of 



212 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

order or not. So, therefore, in any group, the first considera- 
tion with the young leaves is much like that of young bees, 
how to keep out of each other's way, that every one may at 
once leave its neighbours as mucli free-air pasture as possible, 
and obtain a relative freedom for itself. This would be a 
quite simple matter, and produce other simply balanced 
forms, if each branch, with open air all round it, had nothing 
to think of but reconcilement of interests among its own 
leaves. B^it every branch has others to meet or to cross, 
sharing with them, in various advantage, what shade or sun 
or rain is to be had. Hence every single leaf cluster j^resents 
the general aspect of a httle family, entirely at unity among 
themselves, but obliged to get their living by various shifts, 
concessions, and infringements of the family rules, in order 
not to invade the privileges of other people in their neigh- 
bourhood. 

And in the arrangement of these concessions there is an 
exquisite sensibility among the leaves. They do not grow 
each to his own liking, till they run against one another, and 
then turn back sulkily ; but by a watchful instinct, far apart, 
they anticipate their companions' courses, as ships at sea, and 
in every new unfolding of their edged tissue, guide them- 
selves by the sense of each other's remote presence, and by a 
watchful penetration of leafy purpose in the far future. So 
that every shadow which one casts on the next, and every 
glint of sun which each reflects to the next, and every touch 
which in toss of storm each receives from the next, aid or 
arrest the development of their advancing form, and direct, 
as will be safest and best, the curve of every fold and the 
current of every vein. 

And this i)eculiar character exists in all the structures 
thus developed, that they are always visibly the result of a 
volition on the part of the leaf, meeting an external force or 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 213 

fate, to which it is never passively subjected. Upon it, as on 
a mineral in the course of formation, the great merciless influ- 
ences of the universe, and the oppressive powers of minor 
things immediately near it, act continually. Heat and cold, 
gravity and the other attractions, windy pressure, or local 
and unhealthy restraint, must, in certain inevitable degrees, 
affect the whole of its life. But it is life which they affect; — 
a life of progress and will, — not a merely passive accumula- 
tion of substance. This may be seen by a single glance. The 
mineral, — suppose an agate in the course of formation — shows 
in every line nothing but a dead submission to surrounding 
force. Flowing, or congealing, its substance is here repelled, 
there attracted, unresisting to its place, and its languid sinu- 
osities follow the clefts of the rock that contains them, in 
servile deflexion and compulsory cohesion, impotently calcu- 
lable, and cold. But the leaf, full of fears and affections, 
shrinks and seeks, as it obeys. Not thrust, but awed into its 
retiring ; not dragged, but won to its advance ; not bent 
aside, as by a bridle, into new courses of growth : but per- 
suaded and converted through tender continuance of volun- 
tary change. 

The mineral and it differing thus widely in separate being, 
they differ no less in modes of companionship. The mineral 
crystals group themselves neither in succession, nor in sym- 
pathy ; but great and small recklessly strive for place, and 
deface or distort each oilier as they gather into opponent 
asperities. The confused crowd Alls the rock cavity, hanging 
together in a glittering, yet sordid heap, in which nearly 
every crystal, owing to their vain contention, is imperfect, or 
impure. Here and there one, at the cost and in defiance of 
the rest, rises hito unwarped shape or unstained clearness. 
But the order of the leaves is one of soft and subdued con- 
cession. Patiently each awaits its appointed time, accepts its 



214 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

prejDared place, yields its required observance. Under every 
oppression of external accident, the group yet follows a law 
laid down in its own heart; and all the members of it, whe- 
ther in sickness or health, in strength or languor, combine to 
carry out this first and last heart law ; receiving, and seem- 
ing to desire for themselves and for each other, only life 
which they may communicate, and loveliness which they may 
reflect. 



MOUNTAIN INFLUENCE. 

We have found mountains, invariably, calculated for the 
delight, the advantage, or the teaching of men ; prepared, it 
seems, so as to contain, alike in fortitude or feebleness, in 
kindliness or in terror, some beneficence of gift, or profound- 
ness of counsel. We have found that where at first all 
seemed disturbed and accidental, the most tender laws were 
appointed to produce forms of perpetual beauty ; and that 
where to the careless or cold observer it seemed severe or 
purposeless, the well-being of man has been chiefly consulted, 
and his rightly directed powers, and sincerely awakened 
intelligence, may find wealth in every falling rock, and wis- 
dom in every talking wave. 

It remains for us to consider what actual efiect upon the 
human race has been produced by the generosity, or the 
instruction of the hills ; how far, in past ages, they have been 
thanked, or listened to ; how far, in coming ages, it may be 
well for us to accept them for tutors, or acknowledge them 
for friends. 

What they have already taught us may, one would think, 
be best discerned in the midst of them, — in some place where 



PllECIOUS THOUGHTS. 215 

they have had their own way with the human soul ; where no 
veil has been drawn between it and them, no contradicting 
voice has confused their ministries of sound, or broken their 
pathos of silence : where war has never streaked their 
streams with bloody foam, nor ambition sought for other 
throne than their cloud-courtiered pinnacles, nor avarice for 
other treasure than, year by year, is given to their unlabo- 
rious rocks, in budded jewels, and mossy gold. 

I do not know any district possessing a more pure or unin- 
terrupted fulness of mountain character (and that of the 
highest order), or which appears to have been less disturbed 
by foreign agencies, than that which borders the course of 
the Trient between Yalorsine and Martigny. The paths 
which lead to it out of the valley of the Rhone, rising at first 
in steep circles among the walnut trees, like winding stairs 
among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoulders 
of the hills into a valley almost unknown, but thickly inha- 
bited by an industrious and patient population. Along the 
ridges of the rocks, smoothed by old glaciers into long, dark, 
billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the 
peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and 
roots of herb which, little by little, gather a feeble soil over 
the iron substance ; then, supporting the narrow strip of 
clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the spade ; 
and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving 
upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and 
out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet 
with perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen 
the steepest places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, 
scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the 
wind takes them, with nil the grace, but with none of the 
formalism, of fountains ; dividing into fmciful change of dash 
and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon 



216 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

them, as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal 
of past toil, and closing back out of their spray to lave the 
rigid angles, and brighten with silver fringes and glassy films 
each lower and lower step of sable stone ; until at last, 
gathered altogether again, — except, perhaps, some chance 
drops caught on the apple-blossom, where it has budded a 
little nearer the cascade than it did last spring, — they find 
their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that 
silently ; with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among 
the grass blades, and looking only like their shadow, but 
presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laugh- 
ing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the day 
was too short for them to get down the hill. 

Green field, and glowing rock, and glancing streamlet, all 
slope together in the sunshine towards the brows of the 
ravines, where the pines take up their own dominion of sad- 
dened shade ; and with everlasting roar in the twilight, the 
stronger torrents thunder down pale from the glaciers, filling 
all their chasms with enchanted cold, beating themselves to 
pieces against the great rocks that they have themselves cast 
down, and forcing fierce way beneath their ghastly poise. 

The mountain paths stoop to these glens in forky zigzags, 
leading to some grey and narrow arch, all fringed under its 
shuddering curve with the ferns that fear the light ; a cross 
of rough-hewn pine, iron-bound to its parapet, standing dark 
against the lurid fury of the foam. Far up the glen, as we 
pause beside the cross, the sky is seen through the openings 
in the pines, thin with excess of light ; and, in its clear, con- 
suming flame of white space, the sunmiits of the rocky moun- 
tains are gathered into solemn crowns and circlets, all flushed 
in that strange, faint silence of possession by the sunshine 
which has in it so deep a melancholy ; full of power, yet as 
frail as shadows ; lifeless, like the walls of a sepulchre, yet 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 217 

beautiful in tender Ml of crimson folds, like the veil of some 
sea spirit, that lives and dies as the foam flashes ; fixed on a 
perpetual throne, stern against all strength, lifted above all 
sorrow, and yet effaced and melted utterly into the air l)y 
that last sunbeam that has crossed to them from between the 
two golden clouds. 

High above all sorrow : yes ; but not un witnessing to it. 
The traveller on his happy journey, as his foot springs from 
the deep turf and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge of 
the mountain road, sees with a glance of delight the clusters 
of nut-brown cottages that nestle among those sloping 
orchards, and glow beneath the boughs of the pines. Here, 
it may well seem to him, if there be sometimes liardship, 
theie must be at least innocence and peace, and fellowship 
of the human soul with nature. It is not so. The wild 
goats that leap along those rocks have as much passion of 
joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil among 
them. Perhaps more. Enter the street of one of those vil- 
lages, and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness 
that is sufifeied only by torpor, or by anguish of soul. Here, 
it is torpor — not absolute suffering, — not starvation or disease, 
but darkness of calm enduring ; the spring known only as the 
time of the scythe, and the autumn as the time of the sickle, 
and the sun only as a warmth, the wind as a chill, and the 
mountains as a danger. They do not understand so much as 
the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They understand dimly 
that of virtue. Love, patience, hospitality, faith, — these 
things they know. To glean their meadows side by side, so 
happier ; to bear the burden up the breathless mountain 
ilank, unmurmuringly ; to bid the stranger drink from their 
vessel of milk ; to see at the foot of their low deathbeds a 
pale figure upon a cross, dying also, patiently ; — in this they 
are diflferent from the cattle and from the stones, but in all 

10 



218 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

this unrewarded as far as concerns the present life. For 
them, there is neither hope nor passion of spirit ; for them 
neither advance nor exultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark 
night, laborious day, weary arm at sunset ; and life ebbs 
away. No books, no thoughts, no attainments, no rest ; 
except only sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the 
church wall, as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air; 
a pattering of a few prayers, not understood, by the altar 
rails of the dimly gilded chapel, and so back to the sombre 
home, with the cloud upon them still unbroken — that cloud 
of rocky gloom, born out of the wild, torrents and. ruinous 
stones, and unlightened, even in their religion, except by the 
vague promise of some better thing unknown, mingled with 
threatening, and obscured by an unspeakable horror, — a 
smoke, as it were, of martyrdom, coiling up with the incense, 
and, amidst the images of tortured bodies and lamenting spi- 
rits in hurtling flames, the very cross, for them, dashed more 
deeply than for others, with gouts of blood. 

Do not let this be thought a darkened picture of the life 
of these mountaineers. It is literal fact. No contrast can be 
more painful than that between the dwelling of any well con- 
ducted English cottager, and that of the equally honest 
Savoyard. The one, set in the midst of its dull flat fields and 
uninteresting hedgerows, shows in itself the love of bright- 
ness and beauty ; its daisy-studded garden beds, its smoothly 
swept brick path to the threshold, its freshly sanded floor 
and orderly shelves of household furniture, all testify to 
energy of heart, and happiness in the simple course and sim- 
ple possessions of daily life. Tlie other cottage, in the midst 
of an inconceivable, inexpressible beauty, set on some sloping 
bank of golden sward, with clear fountains flowing beside it, 
and wild flowers, and noble trees, and goodly rocks gathered 
round into a perfection as of Paradise, is itself a dark and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 219 

plague-like stain in the midst of the gentle landscape. Within 
a cei-tain distance of its thresliold the ground is foul and cattle- 
trampled ; its timbers are black with smoke, its garden clioked 
witli weeds and nameless refuse, its chambers empty and joy- 
less, the light and wind gleaming and filtering through the 
crannies of their stones. All testifies that to its inhabitant 
the world is labour and vanity ; that for him neither flowers 
bloom, nor birds sing, nor fountains glisten ; and that his soul 
hardly differs from the grey cloud that coils and dies upon 
his hills ; except in having no fold of it touched by the sun- 
beams. 

Is it not strange to i-eflect, that hardly an evening 23asses 
in London or Paris but one of those cottages is painted for 
the better amusement of the fair and idle, and shaded with 
pasteboard pines by the scene-shifter; and that good and kind 
people, — poetically minded, — delight themselves in imagining 
the happy life led by peasants who dwell by Alpine fountains, 
and kneel to crosses upon peaks of rock? that nightly w^e lay 
down our gold to fashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay 
ribands and white bodices, singing sweet songs, and bowing 
gracefully to the picturesque crosses ; and all the while the 
veritable peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to veritable crosses, 
in another temper than the kind and fair audiences dream of, 
and assuredly with another kind of answer tlian is got out of 
the opera catastrophe ; an answer having reference, it may 
be, in dim futurity, to those very audiences themselves ? If 
all the gold that has gone to paint the simulacra of the cot- 
tages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the simulacra 
of the peasants, had gone to brighten the existent cottages, 
and to put new songs into the mouths of the existent peasants, 
it might in the end, perhaps, have turned out better so, not 
only for the peasants, but for even the audience. For that 
form of the False Ideal has also its correspondent True Ideal, 



220 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

— consisting not in the naked beauty of statues, nor in the 
gauze flowers and crackling tinsel of theatres, but in the 
clothed and fed beauty of living men, and in the lights and 
laughs of happy homes. Night after night, the desire of such 
an ideal spiings up in every idle human heart ; and night 
after night, as far as idleness can, we work out this desire in 
costly lies. We paint the faded actress, build the lath land- 
scape, feed our benevolence with fallacies of felicity, and 
satisfy our righteousness with poetry of justice. The time 
will come when, as the heavy-folded curtain falls upon our 
own stage of life, we shall begin to comprehend that the jus- 
tice we loved was intended to have been done in fact, and 
not in poetry, and the felicity we sympathized in, to have 
been bestowed and not feigned. We talk much of money's 
worth, yet j^erhaps may one day be surpiised to find that 
what the wise and charitable European public gave to one 
night's rehearsal of hypocrisy, — to one hour's pleasant war- 
bling of Linda or Lucia, — would have filled a whole Alpine 
Valley with happiness, and poured the waves of harvest over 
the famine of many a Lammermoor. 



man's isolation. 

Let man stand in his due relation to other creatures, and to 
inanimate things — know them all and love them, as made for 
him, and he for them ; — and he becomes himself the greatest 
and holiest of them. But let him cast off this relation, de- 
spise and forget the less creation around him, and instead of 
being the light of the world, he is as a sun in space — a fiery 
ball, spotted with storm. 

All the diseases of mind leading to fatalest ruin consist pri- 



rnEcioi'S THOUGHTS. 221 

marily in this isolation. They are the concentration of man 
upon himself, whether his heavenly interests or his worldly 
interests, matters not ; it is the being his own interests which 
makes the regard of them so mortal. Every form of asceti- 
cism on one side, of sensualism on the other, is an isolation 
of his soul or of his body ; the fixing his thoughts upon them 
alone : while every healthy state of nations and of individual 
minds consists in the unselfish presence of the human spirit 
everywhere, energizing over all things ; speaking and living 
through all things. 

It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man 
can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior. His 
inferior may over-estimate him in enthusiasm ; or, as is more 
commonly the case, degrade him, in ignorance ; but he can- 
not form a grounded and just estimate. Without proving 
this, however — which it would take more space to do than I 
can spare — it is sufiiciently evident that there is no process 
of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can 
become right merely by their multitude. 



SIIAMEFACEDNESS. 

If it w^ere at this moment proposed to any of us, by our 
architects, to remove the grinning head of a satyr, or other 
classical or Palladian ornament, from the keystone of the 
door, and to substitute for it a cross, and an inscription testi- 
fying our faith, I believe that most persons would shrink from 
the proposal with an obscure and yet overwhelming sense 
that things would be sometimes done, and thought, within the 
house which would make the inscription on its gate a base 
hypocrisy. And if so, let us look to it, whether that strong 



222 PRECiors thoughts. 

reluctance to utter a definite religious profession, which so 
many of us feel, and which, not very carefully examining into 
its dim nature, we conchide to be modesty, or fear of hypo- 
crisy, or other such form of amiableness, be not, in very deed, 
neither less nor more than Infidelity; whether Peter's "I 
know not the man " be not the sum and substance of all these 
misgivings and hesitations ; and whether the shamefacedness 
which we attribute to sincerity and reverence, be not such 
shamefacedness as may at last put us among those of whom 
the Son of Man shall be ashamed. 



MAN THE IMAGE OF GOD. 

The directest manifestation of Deity to man is in His own 
image, that is, in man. 

" In his own image. After His likeness." Ad imagme)n 
et similitudineni Suam. I do not know what people in 
general understand by those words. I suppose they ought 
to be understood. The truth they contain seems to lie at 
the foundation of our knowledge both of God and man ; yet 
do we not usually pass the sentence by, in dull reverence,^ 
attaching no definite sense to it at all ? For all practical 
purpose, might it not as well be out of the text ? 

I have no time, nor much desire, to examine the vague 
expressions of belief with which the verse has been encum- 
bered. Let us try to find its only possible plain signifi- 
cance. 

It cannot be supposed that the bodily shape of man resem- 
bles or resembled any bodily shape in Deity. The likeness 
must therefore be, or have been, in the soul. Had it wholly 
passed away, and the Divine soul been altered into a soul 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 223 

brutal or diabolic, I suppose we should have been told of the 
chano-e. But we are told of nothinor of the kind. The verse 
still stands as if for our use and trust. It was only death 
which was to be our punishment. Not change. So far as we 
live, the image is still there ; defiled, if you will ; broken, if 
you will ; all but effaced, if you will, by death and the sha- 
dow of it. But not changed. We are not made now in any 
other image than God's. There are, indeed, the two states 
of this image — the earthly and the heavenly, but both Adam- 
ite, both human, both the same likeness ; only one defiled, 
and one pure. So that the soul of man is still a mirror, 
wherein may be seen, darkly, the image of the mind of God. 
These may seem daring words. I am sorry that they do ; 
but I am helpless to soften them. Discover any other mean- 
ing of the text if you are able ; — but be sure that it is a 
meaning — a meaning in your head and heart, — not a subtle 
gloss, nor a shifting of one verbal expressionin to another, 
both' idealess. I repeat, that, to me, the verse has, and can 
have, no other signification than this— that the soul of man 
is a mirror of the mind of God. A mirror dark, distorted, 
broken, use what blameful words you please of its state ; yet 
in the main, a true mirror, out of which alone, and by which 
alone, we can know anything of God at all. "How?" the 
reader, perhaps, answers indignantly. "I know the nature 
of God by revelation, not by looking into myself." 

Revelation to what ? To a nature incapable of receiving 
truth ? That cannot be ; for only to a nature capable of truth, 
desirous of it, distinguishing it, feeding upon it, revelation is 
possible. To a being undesirous of it, and hating it, revela- 
tion is impossible. There can be none to a brute, or fiend. 
In so far, therefore, as you love truth, and live therein, in so 
far revelation can exist for you ; — and in so far your mind is 
the image of God's. 



224 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

But consider farther, not only to what, but hy what, is the 
revelation. By sight? or word ? If by siglit, then to eyes 
which see justly. Otherwise, no sight would be revelation. 
So far, then, as your sight is just, it is the image of God's sight. 

If by words, — how do you know their meanings? Here is 
a short piece of precious word-revelation, for instance. " God 
is love." 

Love! yes. But what is that? The revelation does not 
tell you that, I think. Look into the mirror, and you will 
see. Out of your own heart you may know what love is. In 
no other possible way, — by no other help or sign. All the 
words and sounds ever uttered, all the revelations of cloud, 
or flame, or crystal, are utterly powerless. They cannot tell 
you, in the smallest point, what love means. Only the broken 
mirror can. 

Here is more revelation. " God is just !" Just ! What 
is that ? The revelation cannot help you to discover. You 
say it is dealing equitably or equally. But how do you dis- 
cern the equality ? Not by inequ.nlity of mind ; not by a 
mind incapable of weighing, judging, or distributing. If the 
lengths seem unequal in the broken mirror, for you they are 
unequal ; but if they seem equal, then the mirror is true. So 
far as you recognize equality, and your conscience tells you 
what is just, so far your mind is the image of God's : and so 
far as you do not discern this nature of justice or equality, 
the words " God is just "• bring no revelation to you. 

"But His thoughts are not as our thoughts." No; the 
sea is not as the standing pool by the w^ayside. Yet when 
the breeze crisps the pool, you may see the image of the 
breakers, and a likeness of the foam. Nay, in some sort, the 
same foam. If the sea is for ever invisible to you, something 
you may learn of it from the pool. Nothing, assuredly, any 
otherwise. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 22 o 

" But this poor niiseral)le Me ! Is this^ then, all the book 
T have got to read about God in ?" Yes, truly so. No otiier 
book, nor fragment of book, than that, will you ever find ; — 
no velvet-bound missal, nor frankincensed manuscript ; — no- 
thing hieroglyphic nor cuneiform ; ^^apyrus and pyramid are 
alike silent on this matter ; — nothing in the clouds above, nor 
in the earth beneath. That flesh-bound volume is the only 
revelation that is, that was, or that can be. In that is the 
image of God painted ; in that is the law of God written ; in 
that is the promise of God revealed. Know thyself; for 
through thyself only thou canst know God. 

Through the glass, darkly. But, except through the glass, 
in nowise. 

A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured out upon the 
ground ; — you may defile it, despise it, pollute it at your plea- 
sure, and at your peril ; for on the peace of those weak waves 
must all the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen ; and 
through such purity as you can win for those dark waves, 
must all the light of the risen Sun of righteousness be bent 
down, by faint refraction. Cleanse them, and calm them, as 
you love your life. 

Therefore it is that all the j^ower of nature depends on sub- 
jection to the human soul. Man is the sun of the world ; 
more than the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the 
only liglit and heat worth gauge or measure. Where ho is, 
are the tropics ; where he is not, the ice-world. 



THE DREAMERS. 



Newton, probably, did not perceive whether the apple wliich 
suggested his meditations on gravity was withered or rosy; 

10* 



226 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

nor could Howard be affected by the picturesqueness of the 
architecture which held the sufferers it was his occupation to 
relieve. 

This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to the 
business of life is not, however, peculiar to men of the highest 
reasoning powers or the most active benevolence. It takes 
place, more or less, in nearly all persons of average mental 
endowment. They see and love what is beautiful, but forget 
their admiration of it in following some train of thought which 
it suggested, and which is of more personal interest to them. 

Suppose that three or four persons come in sight of a group 
of pine-trees, not having seen pines for some time. One, 
perhaps an engineer, is struck by the manner in which their 
roots hold the ground, and sets himself to examine their 
fibres, in a few minutes retaining little more consciousness 
of the beauty of the trees than if he were a ropemaker 
nntwisting the strands of a cable ; to anotlier, the sight of the 
trees calls up some happy association, and presently he for- 
gets them, and pursues the memories they summoned ; a third 
is struck by certain groupings of their colours, useful to him as 
an artist, which he proceeds to note mechanically for future 
use with as little feeling as a cook setting down the constitu- 
ents of a newly-discovered dish ; and a fourth, impressed by 
the wild wailing of boughs and roots, will begin to change 
them in his fancy into dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp 
of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis; while in the mind of 
the man who has most the power of contemplating the thing 
itself, all these perceptions and ideas are partially present, not 
distinctly, but in a mingled and perfect harmony. He will not 
see the colours of the tree so well as the artist, nor its fibres 
s.) well as the engineer ; he will not altogether share the emo- 
tion of the sentimentalist, nor the trance of the idealist ; but 
fancy, and feeling, and perception, and imagination, will all 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 227 

obscurely meet and balance themselves in him, and he will 
see the pine-trees somewhat in this manner : 

" Worthier still of note 
Are those frater-oal Four of Borrowdale, 
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ; 
Huge trunks ! and each particular trunk a growth 
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine 
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved ; 
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks 
That threaten the profane ; a pillared shade, 
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged 
Perennially, — beneath whose sable roof 
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked 
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes 
May meet at noontide ; Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, 
And Time the Shadow ; there to celebrate. 
As in a natural temple scattered o'er 
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 
United worship." 

The power, therefore, of thus fully perceimng any natural 
object depends on our being able to group and fasten all our 
fancies about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts for 
it, in which each separate thought is subdued and shortened 
of its own strength, in order to fit it for harmony with others ; 
the intensity of our enjoyment of the object depending, first, 
on its own beauty, and then on the richness of the garland. 
And men who have this habit of clustering and harmonizing 
theii- thoughts are a little too apt to look scornfully upon the 
harder workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the 
stems. This was the chief nari-owness of Wordsworth's mind ; 
he could not understand that to break a rock with a hammer 
in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful 



228 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

to human nature, and that to dissect a flower may sometimes 
be as proper as to dream over it ; whereas, all experience goes 
to teach us that among men of average intellect, the most 
useful members of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. 
It is not that they love nature or beauty less, but that they 
love result, effect, and progress more. 



THE OLD CATHEDRALS. 

Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does 
every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. 
Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every 
mountain glen, and rough sea-shore. But this they have of 
distinct and indisputable glory, — that their mighty walls were 
never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid 
each other in their weakness; — that all their interlacing 
strength of vaulted stone has its foundation upon the stronger 
arches of manly fellowship, and all their changing grace of 
depressed or lifted pinnacle owes its cadence and complete- 
ness to sweeter symmetries of human soul. 



PLAGIARISM. 

Touching plagiarism in general, it is to be remembered that 
all men who have sense and feeling are being continually 
helped: they are taught by every person whom they meet 
and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The 
greatest is he who has been often est aided ; and, if the attain- 
ments of all human minds could be traced to their real 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 229 

sources, it would be found tbat the world had been laid most 
under contribution by the men of most original power, and 
that every day of their existence deepened their debt to their 
race, while it enlarged their gifts to it. The labour devoted to 
trace the origin of any thought, or any invention, will usually 
issue in the blank conclnsion that there is nothing new under 
the smi; yet nothing that is truly great can ever be altoge- 
ther borrowed; and he is commonly the wisest, and is always 
the happiest, who receives simply, and without envious ques- 
tion, whatever good is offered him, with thanks to its imme- 
diate giver. 



THE 

A nation's labour, well applied, is amply sufficient to pro- 
vide its whole population with good food, comfortable cloth- 
ing, and pleasant luxury. But the good, instant, and constant 
application is everything. We must not, when our strong 
hands are thrown out of work, look wildly about for want of 
something to do with them. If ever we feel that want, it is 
a sign that all our household is out of order. Fancy a farm- 
er's wife, to whom one or two of her servants should come 
at twelve o'clock at noon, crying that they had got nothing to 
do ; that they did not know what to do next : and fancy still 
farther, the said farmer's wife looking hopelessly about her 
rooms and yard, they being all the while considerably in dis- 
order, not knowing where to set the spare hand-maidens to 
work, and at last complaining bitterly tiiat she had been 
obliged to give them their dinner for nothing. Would you 
not at once assert of such a mistress tliat she knew nothing 
of her duties ? and would you not be certain, if the household 



230 PRECIOUS TBOUGHTS. 

were rightly managed, the mistress would be only too glad 
at any moment to have the help of any number of spare 
hands ; that she would know in an instant what to set them 
to ; — in an instant what part of to-morrow's work might be 
most serviceably forwarded, what part of next month's work 
most wisely provided for, or what new task of some profit- 
able kind undertaken ? and when the evening came, and she 
dismissed her servants to their recreation or their rest, or 
gathered them to the reading round the work-table, under 
the eaves in tlie sunset, would you not be sure to find that 
none of them had been overtasked by her, just because none 
had been left idle ; that everything had been accomphshed 
because all had been employed ; that the kindness of the mis- 
tress had aided her presence of mind, and the slight labour 
had been entrusted to the weak, and the formidable to the 
strong ; and that as none had been dishonoured by inactivity, 
so none had been broken by toil ? Now the precise counter- 
part of such a household would be seen in a nation in which 
political economy was rightly understood. 



DISCIPLINE AND INTERFERENCE. 

For half an hour every Sunday Ave expect a man in a black 
gown, supposed to be telling us truth, to address us as bre- 
thren, though we should be shocked at the notion of any 
brotherhood existing among us out of church. And we can 
hardly read a few sentences on any j^olitical subject without 
running a chance of crossing the phrase " paternal govern- 
ment," though we should be utterly horror-struck at the idea 
of governments claiming anything like a flither's authority 
over us. Now, I believe those two formal phrases are in both 



rRT-CIOUS TIIOITGHTS. 231 

instances perfectly binding and accurate, and that the image 
of the fjirm and its servants which I have hitherto used, as ex- 
pressing a wliolesome national organization, fails only of doing 
so, not becanse it is too domestic, but because it is not domes- 
tic enough ; because the real type of a well-organized nation 
must be presented, not by a farm cultivated by servants who 
wrought for hire, and might be turned away if they refused 
to labour, but by a form in which the master was a father, and 
in which all the servants were sons; which implied, therefore, 
in all its regulations, not merely the order of expediency, but 
the bonds of affection and responsibilities of relationship ; and 
in which all acts and services were not only to be sweetened by 
brotherly concord, but to be enforced by fatherly authority. 

Observe, I do not mean in the least that we ought to place 
such an authority in the hands of any one person, or of any 
class, or body of persons. But I do mean to say that as an 
individual who conducts himself wisely must make laws for 
himself which at some time or other may appear irksome or 
injurious, but which, precisely at the time they appear most 
irksome, it is most necessary he should obey, so a nation which 
means to conduct itself wisely, must establish authority over 
itself, vested either in kings, councils, or laws, which it must 
resolve to obey, even at times when the law oT authority 
appears irksome to the body of tlie people, or injurious to cer- 
tain masses of it. And this kind of national law has hitherto 
been only judicial ; contented, that is, with an endeavour to 
prevent and punish violence and crime; but, as we advance 
in our social knowledge, we shall endeavour to make our 
government paternal as well as judicial ; that is, to establish 
such laws and authorities as may at once direct us in our 
occupations, protect us against our follies, and visit us in our 
distresses : a government which shall repress dishonesty, as 
now it })unishes theft ; which shall show how the discipline 



232 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

of the masses may be brought to aid the toils of peace, as 
discipline of the masses has hitlierto knit the sinews of battle; 
a govei-nment wliich shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare 
as well as its soldiers of the sword, and w^hich shall distribute 
more proudly its golden crosses of industry — golden as the 
glow of tlie harvest, than now it grants its bronze crosses of 
honour — bronzed with the crimson of blood. 

I have not, of course, time to insist on the nature or details 
of government of this kind ; only I wish to plead for your 
several and future consideration of this one truth, that the 
notion of Discipline and Interference lies at the very root of 
all human progress or power ; that the " Let alone" principle 
is, in all things wliich man has to do with, the principle of 
death ; that it is ruin to him, certain and total, if he lets his 
land alone — if he lets his fellow-men alone — if he lets his own 
soul alone. That his whole life, on the contrary, must, if it 
is healthy life, be continually one of j)loughing and pruning, 
rebuking and heljoing, governing and punishing; and that 
therefore it is only in the concession of some great principle 
of restraint and interference in national action that he can 
ever hope to find the secret of protection against national 
deofradation. 



LESSONS FEOM EOCKS. 

There is one lesson evidently intended to be taught by the 
different characters of these rocks, which we must not allow 
to escape us. We have to observe, first, the state of perfect 
powerlessness, and loss of all beauty, exhibited in those beds 
of earth in which the separated pieces or particles are entirely 
independent of each othei', more especially in the gravel 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 233 

whose pebbles have all been rolled into one shape : secondly, 
the greater degree of permanence, power, and beauty pos- 
sessed by the rocks whose component atoms have some affec- 
tion and attraction for each other, though all of one kind ; 
and, lastly, the utmost form and highest beauty of the rocks 
in which the several atoms have all different shapes^ charac- 
ters^ and offices / but are inseparably united by some fiery 
process wliich has purified them all. 

It can hardly be necessaryto point out how these natural 
ordinances seem intended to teach us the great truths which 
are the basis of all political science ; how the polishing fric- 
tion which separates, the affection which binds, and the afilic- 
tiou that fuses and confirms, are accurately symbolized by the 
processes to which the several ranks of hills appear to owe 
their present aspect ; and how, even if the knowledge of those 
processes be denied to us, that present aspect may in itself 
seem no imperfect image of the various states of mankind ; 
first, that which is powerless through total disorganization ; 
secondly, that v»'hich, though united, and in some degree 
powerful, is yet incapable of great effort or result, owing to 
the too great similarity and confusion of ofiices, both in 
ranks and individuals; and finally, the perfect state of bro- 
therhood and strength in w^hich each character is clearly dis- 
tinguished, separately perfected, and employed in its proper 
place and office. 



REVEREXCE. 



When the flowers and grass were regarded as means of 
life, and therefore (as the thoughtful labourer of the soil 
must always regard them) with the reverence due to those 



234 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

gifts of God which were most necessary to his existence ; 
although their own beauty was less felt, their proceeding from 
the Divine hand was more seriously acknowledged, and the' 
herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit, thougli in 
themselves less admired, were yet solemnly connected in the 
heart with the reverence of Ceres, Pomona, or Pan. Biu 
when the sense of these necessary uses was more or less lost, 
among the upjDer classes, by the delegation of the art of hus- 
bandry to the hands of the peasant, the flower and fruit, whose 
bloom or richness thus became a mere source of pleasure, 
were regarded with less solemn sense of the Divine gift in 
them ; and were converted rather into toys than treasures, 
chance gifts for gaiety, rather than promised rewards of 
labour ; so that while the Greek could hardly have trodden 
the formal farrow, or plucked the clusters from the trellised 
vine, without reverent thoughts of the deities of field and 
leaf, who gave the seed to fructify, and the bloom to darken, 
the mediaeval knight plucked the violet to wreathe in his 
lady's hair, or strewed the idle rose on the turf at her feet, 
with little sense of anything in the nature that gave them, 
but a frail, accidental, involuntary exuberance ; while also the 
Jewish sacrificial system being now done away, as well as the 
Pagan mythology, and, with it, the whole conception of meat 
offering or firstfrnits offering, the chiefest seriousness of all 
the thoughts connected with the gifts of nature faded from 
the minds of the classes of men concerned with art and lite- 
rature ; while the peasant, reduced to serf level, was incapa- 
ble of imaginative thought, owing to his want of general 
cultivation. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 235 



MYSTERY IIS" LANGUAGE. 



All noble language-mystery is reached only by intense 
labour. Striving to speak with uttermost truth of expres- 
sion, weighing word against word, and wasting none, the 
great speaker, or writer, toils first into perfect intelligibleness, 
then, as he reaches to higher subject, and still more concen- 
trated and wonderful utterance, he becomes ambiguous — as 
Dante is ambiguous, — half a dozen different meanings light- 
ening out in separate rays from every word, and, here and 
there, giving rise to much contention of critics as to what 
the, intended meaning actually was. But it is no drunkard's 
babble for all that, and the men who think it so, at the 
third hour of the day, do not highly honour themselves in the 
thought. 



ALL THINGS HAYE THEIR PLACE. 

Many plants are found alone on a certain soil or subsoil in 
a wild state, not because such soil is favourable to them, but 
because they alone are capable of existing on it, and because 
all dangei'ous rivals are by its inhospitality removed. Now 
if we withdraw the plant from this position, which it hardly 
endures, and supply it with the earth, and maintain about it 
the temperature that it delights in ; withdraAving from it at 
the same time all rivals which, in such conditions, nature 
would have thrust upon it ; we shall indeed obtain a magni- 
ficently developed example of the plant, colossal in size, and 
S|)lendid in organization, but we shall utterly lose in it tliat 
moral ideal which is dependent on its right fulHlment of its 
appointed functions. It was intended and created by the 



236 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Deity for the covering of those lonely spots whore no other 
j)lant could live ; it has been thereto endowed with courage, 
and strength, and capacities of endurance unequalled ; its 
character and glory are not therefore in the gluttonous and 
idle feeling of its own over luxuriance, at the expense of 
other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good 
alone, but in its right doing of its bard duty, and forward 
climbing into those spots of forlorn bope where it alone can 
bear witness to the kindness and presence of the Spirit that 
cuttetb out rivers among the rocks, as it covers the valleys 
witb corn. 



PERFECT AND PARTIAI. TRUTH. 

At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and baseness, 
it is often a relief to glance at the graceful shadows, and take, 
for momentary companionship, creatures full only of love, 
gladness, and honour. But the j^erfect truth will at last 
vindicate itself against the partial truth ; the help which we 
can gain from the unsubstantial vision will be only like that 
which we may sometimes receive, in weariness, from the scent 
of a flower or the passing of a breeze. 



THE REALITY. 



Whatever delight we may have been in the habit of taking 
in pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at 
our Avill the canvass from the fame, and in lieu of it to 
behold, fixed for ever, the image of some of those mighty 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 237 

scenes which it has been our way to make mere themes for 
the artist's fancy; if, for instance, we could again behold the 
Magdalene receiving her pardon at Christ's feet, or the dis- 
ciples sitting Avitli Him at the table of Emmaus ; and this not 
feebly nor fancifully, but as if some silver mirror, that had 
leaned againsl the wall of the chamber, had been miraculously 
commanded to retain for ever the colours that had flashed 
upon it for an instant, — would we not part with our picture 
— Titian's or Veronese's thouo-h it mio-ht be ? 



EESPECT FOR THE DEAD. 

Our respect for the dead, when they avejust dead, is some- 
thing wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful 
still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we 
show it with black dresses and bright heraldries ; we show it 
with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow^, which spoil 
half of our most beautiful cathedrals. We show it with 
fiightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the 
midst of the quiet grass ; and last, not least, we show it by 
permitting ourselves to tell any number of lies we think amia- 
ble or credible, in the epitaph. This feeling is common to the 
poor as well as the rich ; and we all know ho\v many a poor 
family will nearly ruin themselves, to testify their respect for 
some member of it in his coffin, w^hom they never much cared 
for when he was out of it ; and how often it happens that a 
l^oor old woman will starve herself to death, in order that she 
may be respectably buried. 

Now, this being one of the most complete and special ways 
of wasting money ; — no money being less productive of good, 
or of any percentage whatever, than that which we shake 



238 pRECiotrs thoughts. 

away from the ends of undertakers' plumes — it Is of course 
the duty of all good economists, and kind persons, to prove 
and proclaim continually, to the poor as well as the rich, that 
respect for the dead is not really shown by laying great 
stones on them to tell us where they are laid ; but by remem- 
bering where they are laid without a stone to help us ; trust- 
ing them to the sacred grass and saddened flowers; and still 
more, that respect and love are shown to them, not by great 
monuments to them which we build with our hands, but by 
letting the monuments stand, which they built with their own. 
And this is the point now in question. 

Observe, there are two great reciprocal duties concerning 
industry, constantly to be exchanged between the living and 
the dead. We, as we live and work, are to be always think- 
ing of those who are to come after us ; that what we do may 
be serviceable, as far as we can make it so, to them, as well 
as to us. Then, when we die, it is the duty of those w^ho 
come after ns to accept this work of ours with thanks and 
remembrance, not thrusting it aside or tearing it down the 
moment they think they have no use for it. And each gene- 
ration will only be happy or powerful to the pitch that it 
ought to be, in fulfilling these two duties to the Past and the 
Future. Its own work will never be rightly done, even for 
itself — never good, or noble, or pleasurable to its owm eyes — • 
if it does not also prepare it for the eyes of generations yet 
to come. And its own possessions will never be enough for 
it, unless it avails itself gratefully and tenderly of the treasures 
and wisdom bequeathed to it by its ancestors. For, be 
assured, that all the best things and treasures of this world 
are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we 
are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will 
melt, but each and all of us to be rolling a great white gather- 
ing snow^ball, — higher and higher, larger and larger, — along 



PRECIOUS TilOUGIlTS. 239 

the Alps of human power. Thus the science of nations is to 
be accumulative from father to son ; the history and poetry 
of nations is to be accumulative ; each generation treasuring 
the history and the songs of its ancestors, adding its own his- 
tory and its own songs ; and the art of nations is to be accn- 
muhitive, — the work of living men not superseding, but build- 
ing itself upon the w^ork of the past. Nearly every great and 
intellectual race of the world has produced, at every period 
of its career, with some peculiar and precious character about 
it wholly unattainable by any other race, and at any other 
time, and the intention of Providence concerning that art is 
evidently that it should all grow together into one mighty 
temple ; the rough and the smooth all finding their place, and 
rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven. 
l^ow just fancy what a position the world would have been 
in by this time, if it had in the least understood this duty or 
been capable of it. Fancy what we should have had around 
us now if, instead of quarrelling and fighting over their work, 
the nations had aided each other in their work, or if even in 
their conquests, instead of effacing the memorials of those 
they succeeded and subdued, they had guarded the spoils of 
their victories. Fancy what Europe would be now, if the 
delicate statues and temples of the Greeks, — if the broad roads 
and massy walls of the Romans, — if the noble and pathetic 
architecture of the middle ages, had not been ground to dust 
by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe of Time, and 
the tooth of Time : I tell you, Time is scytheless and tooth- 
less ; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like 
the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who con- 
sume : we are the mildew, and the flame, and the soul of 
man is to its own work as the moth, that frets wdien it cannot 
fly, and as the hidden flame that blasts where it cannot illu- 
mine. All these lost treasures of human intellect have been 



210 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

wholly destroyed by human industry of destruction ; the mar- 
ble would have stood its two thousnnd years as well in the 
polished statue as in the Parian cliff; but we men have ground 
it to powder, and mixed it with our own ashes. The walls 
and the ways would have stood — it is we who have left not 
one stone upon another, and restored its pathlessness to the 
desert ; the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood 
— it is we who have dashed down the carved work with axes 
and hammers, and bid the mountain-gi-ass bloom upon the 
l^avement, and the sea-winds chaunt in the galleries. 



IDOLATRY. 

I do not intend, in thus applying the word " Idolatry" to 
ceitain ceremonies of Romanist woi'ship, to admit the pro- 
priety of the ordinary Protestant manner of regarding those 
ceremonies as distinctively idolatrous, and as separating the 
Romanist from the Protestant Church by a gulf across which 
we must not look to our fellow-Christians but with utter 
reprobation and disdain. The Church of Rome does indeed 
distinctively vioLite the second commandment ; but the true 
force and weight of the sin of idolatry are in the violation of 
the first, of which we are all of us guilty, in probably a very 
equal degree, considered only as members of this or that com- 
munion, and not as Christians or unbelievers. Idolatry is, 
both literally and verily, not the mere bowing down before 
sculptures, but the serving or becoming the slave of any 
images or imaginations which stand between us and God, and 
it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as " walking after the 
Imagination'''' of our own hearts. And observe also that 
while, at least on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indul- 
gence granted to the mere eternal and literal violation of the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 241 

second commandment, " When I bow myself in tlie house of 
Riniinon, the Lord pardon thy servant in tliis thing," we find 
no indulgence in any instance, or in the slightest degree, 
granted to " covetousness, which is idohitry" (Col. iii. 5 ; no 
casual association of terms, observe, but again energetically 
repeated in Ephesians, v. 5, " No covetous man, who is an 
idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ") ; 
nor any to that denial of God, idolatry in one of its most 
subtle forms, following so often on the possession of that 
wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly, " Give me 
neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and 
say, 'Who is the Lord?'" 

And in this scMise, which of us is not an idolater ? Which 
of us has the right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, 
in spite of which he nevertheless is not yet separated from 
the sei-vice of this world, to speak scornfully of any of his 
brethren, because, in a guiltless ignorance, they have been 
accustomed to bow their knees before a statue ? Which of 
us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship in their 
apparent idolatry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in 
our own apparent woi'ship? 

For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of 
the feeling with which another bows down before an image. 
From that |)ure reverence in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote 
"I can dispense wnth my hat at the sight of a cross, but not 
with a thought of my Redeemer," to the worst superstition 
of the most ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series of 
subtle transitions ; and the point where simple reverence and 
the use of the image merely to render conception more vivid, 
and feeling more intense, change into definite idolatry by the 
attribution of Power to the image itself, is so difiicultly deter- 
minable that we cannot be too cautious in asserting that such a 
change has actually taken place in the case of any individual. 

11 



^42 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



OBEDIEXCE TO LAW, OR LOYALTY. 

In one of the noblest poems,* for its imagery and its music, 

* " Ye Clouds 1 that far above me float and pause, 

Whose pathless march no mortal may control! 

Te Ocean-Waves ! that wheresoe'er ye roll, 
Yield homage only to eternal laws ! 
Ye Woods 1 that listen to the night-birds singing, 

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined. 
Save when your own imperious branches swinging, 

Have made a solemn music of the wind ! 
Where, like a man beloved of God, 
Through glooms, which never woodman trod, 

How oft, pursuing fancies holy. 
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, 

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly. 
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound ! 
ye loud Waves ! and ye Forests high ! 

And ye Clouds that far above me soared I 
Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky 1 

Yea, everything that is and will be free I 

Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 

With what deep worship I have still adored 
The spirit of divincst Liberty." — Coleridge. 

Noble verse, but erring thought : contrast George Herbert : — 

" Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths, 
Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man? 
Houses are built by rule and Commonwealths. 
Entice the trusty sun, if that you can. 
From his ecliptic line ; beckon the sky. 
Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. 

" Who keeps no giiard upon himself is slack, 
And rots to nothing at the next great thaw ; 
Man is a shop of rules : a well-truss'd pack 
Whose every parcel underwrites a law. 
Lose not thyself, nor give thy humours way ; 
God gave them to thee under lock and key." 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 243 

belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer 
lias sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression 
of that liberty which, having once wooed, he had seen among 
men in its ti'ue dyes of darkness. But with what strange 
fallacy of interpretation ! since in one noble liiie of his 
invocation he has contradicted the assumptions of tlie rest, 
and acknowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not 
less severe than eternal. How could he otherwise ? since if 
there be any one principle more widely than another confessed 
by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted 
on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not 
Liberty, but Law. 

Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it 
would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only 
granted that obedience may be more perfect ; and thus, while 
a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual 
energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfec- 
tion of them all consist in their Restraint. Compare a river 
that has burst its banks with one that is bound by them, and 
the clouds that are scattered over the face of the whole 
heaven Mith those that are marshalled into ranks and orders 
by its winds. So that though restraint, utter and unrelaxing, 
can never be comely, this is not because it is in itself an evil, 
but only because, when too great, it overpowers the nature 
of the thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of 
which that nature is itself composed. And the balance 
wherein consists the fairness of creation is between the laws 
of life and being in the things governed and the laws of gene- 
ral sway to which they are subjected ; and the suspension or 
infringement of either kind of law, or, literally, disorder, is equi- 
valent to, and synonymous with, disease ; while the increase 
of both honour and beauty is habitually on the side of restraint 
(or the action of superior law) rather than of character (or the 



244 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

action of inlierent law). The noblest word in the catalogue 
of social virtue is " Loyalty," and the sweetest which men 
have learned in the pastures of the wilderness is " Fold." 

Nor is tljis all ; but we may observe, that exactly in pro- 
portion to the majesty of things in the scale of being, is the 
completeness of their obedience to the laws that are set over 
them. Gravitation is less quietly, less instantly obeyed by a 
grain of dust than it is by the sun and moon ; and the ocean 
falls and flows under influences which the lake and river do 
not recognise. So also hi estimating the dignity of any action 
or occupation of men, there is perhaps no better test than the 
question "are its laws strait?" For their severity will pro- 
bably be commensurate with tlie greatness of the numbers 
whose labour it concentrates or whose interest it concerns. 



THE GOODXESS OF GOD IN CREATIOiN". 

There is this diff*erence between the positions held in crea- 
tion by animals and plants, and thence in the dispositions with 
which we regard them ; that the animals, being for the most 
part locomotive, are ca])able both of living where they choose, 
and of obtaining what food they want, and of fulfilling all the 
conditions necessary to their health and perfection. For 
which reason they are answerable for such health and perfec- 
tion, and we should be displeased and hurt if we did not find 
it in one individual as well as another. 

But the case is evidently difierent with plants. They are 
intended fixedly to occupy many places comparatively unfit 
for them, and to fill up all the spaces where greenness, and 
coolness, and ornament, and oxygen are wanted, and that 
•with very little reference to their comfort or convenience. 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 245 

Now it would be hard upon the plant if, after being tied to a 
particular spot, where it is indeed much wanted, and is a great 
blessing, but where it has enough to do to live, whence it 
cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must 
stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath 
and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sus- 
tenance in unkindly soil ; it would be hard upon the plant, I 
say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answer- 
able for its appearance, and found fault Avith because it was 
not a fine plant of the kind. And so we find it ordained that 
in order that no unkind comparisons may be drawn between 
one and another, there are not appointed to plants the fixed 
number, position, and proportion of members which are 
ordained in animals, (and any variation from which in these 
is unpardonable,) but a continually varying number and posi- 
tion, even among the more freely growing examples, admit- 
ting therefore all kinds of license to those which have enemies 
to contend with, and that without in any way detracting from 
their dignity and perfection. 

So then there is in trees no perfect form which can be fixed 
upon or reasoned out as ideal ; but that is always an ideal oak 
which, however poverty-stricken, or hunger-pinched, or tem- 
pest-tortured, is yet seen to have done, under its appointed 
circumstances, all that could be expected of oak. 

And herein, then, we at last find the cause of that fact, that 
the exalted or seemingly improved condition, whether of 
plant or animal, induced by human interference, is not the 
true but artistical ideal of it.* It has been well shown by Dr. 

* I speak not here of those conditions of veo;etation which have espe- 
cial reference to man, as of seeds and fruits, whoso sweetness and farina 
seem in great measure given, not for the plant's sake but for his, and to 
which therefore tlie interruption in the harmony of creation of which he 
was the ca\iso is extended, and their sweetness and larger measure of good 



246 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Herbert, that many plants are found alone on a certain soil or 
sub-soil in a wild state, not because such soil is favorable to 
them, but because they alone are capable of existing on it, 
and because all dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality 
removed. Now if we withdraw the plant from this position, 
which it hardly endures, and supply it with the earth, and 
maintam about it the temperature that it delights in ; with- 
drawing from it at the same time all rivals wdiich, in such 
conditions, nature would have thrust upon it, we shall indeed 
obtain a raagniticently developed example of the plant, colos- 
sal in size, and splendid in organization, but we shall utterly 
lose in it that moral ideal which is dependent on its right ful- 
filment of its appointed functions. It was intended and 
created by the Deity for the covering of those lonely spots 
where no other plant could live ; it has been thereto endowed 
"witli courage, and strength, and capacities of endurance 
unequalled ; its character and glory are not therefore in the 
gluttonous and idle feeling of its own over luxuriance, at the 
expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out 
for its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard duty, and 
forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it 
alone can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the 
Spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as it covers the 
valleys with corn : and there, in its vanward place, and only 
there, where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and 
where nothing can take part of its honour, nor usurp its 
throne, are its strength, and fairness, and price, and goodness 
in the sight of God, to be truly esteemed. 

The first time that I saw the soldanella alpina, it was grow- 
ing, of magnificent size, on a sunny Alpine pasture, among 

to be ol3taincd only by his redeeming labour His curse has fallen on the 
corn and the vine, and the wild barley misses of its fulness, that he may 
eat bread bv the sweat of his brow 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 247 

bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, associated with a pro- 
fusion of gemn montanum, and ranunculus pyrenseus. I 
noticed it only because new to me, nor perceived any peculiar 
beauty in its cloven flower. Some days after, I found it 
alone, among the rack of the higher clouds, and howling of 
glacier winds, and, as I described it, piercing through an edge 
of avalanche, which in its retiring had left the new ground 
brown and lifeless, and as if burned by recent fire ; the plant 
was poor and feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its efforts, 
but it was then tliat I comprehended its ideal character, and 
saw its noble function and order of glory among the constel- 
lations of the earth. 



THE PRINCIPLES OE GOOD GOVERNMENT. 

One of the frescoes by Ambrozio Lorenzetti, in the town- 
hall of Siena, represents, by means of symbolical figures, the 
principles of Good Civic Government and of Good Govern- 
ment in general. The figure representing this noble Civic 
Government is enthroned, and surrounded by figures repre- 
senting the Virtues, variously supporting or administering its 
authority. Now, observe what work is given to each of these 
virtues. Three winged ones — Faith, Hope, and Charity — 
surrounded the head of the figure, not in mere compliance 
with the common and heraldic laws of precedence among 
Virtues, such as we moderns observe habitually, but with 
peculiar purpose on the part of the painter. Faith, as thus 
rejiresented, ruling the thoughts of the Good Governor, does 
not mean merely religious faith, understood in those times to 
be necessary to all persons — governed no less tlian governors 
— but it means the faith "which enables work to be carried 



248 PRECIOUS TflOTTGHTS. 

out Steadily, in spite of adverse appearances and expediencies ; 
the faith in great principles, by which a civic ruler looks past 
all the immediate checks and shadows that would daunt a 
common man, knowing that what is rightly done will have a 
right issue, and holding his way in spite of pullings at his 
cloak and whisperings in his ear, enduring, as having in him 
a faith which is evidence of things unseen. And Hope, in 
like manner, is here not the heavenward hope which ought to 
animate the hearts of all men ; but she attends upon Good 
Government, to show that all such government is expectant 
as well as conservative ; that if it ceases to be hopeful of bet- 
ter things, it ceases to be a wise guardian of ])resent things : 
that it ought never, as long as the world lasts, to be wholly 
content with any existing state of institution or possession, 
but to be hopeful still of more wisdom and power ; not clutch- 
ing at it restlessly or hastily, but feeling that its real life con- 
sists in steady ascent from high to higher : conservative, in- 
deed, and jealously conservative of old things, but conserva- 
tive of them as pillars not as pinnacles — as aids, but not as 
Idols ; and hopeful chiefly, and active, in times of national 
trial or distress, according to those first and notable words 
describing the queenly nation. " She riseth, while it is yet 
night.'''' And again, the winged Charity which is attendant 
on Good Government has, in this fresco, a peculiar ofiice. 
Can you guess what? If you consider the character of con- 
test which so often takes place among kings for their crowns, 
and the selfish and tyrannous means they commonly take to 
aggrandize or secure their power, you will, perhaps, be sur- 
pi-ised to hear that the oflSce of Charity is to crown the King. 
And yet, if you think of it a little, you will see the beauty of 
the thought which sets her in this function : since in the first 
place, all the authority of a good governor should be desired 
by him only for the good of his people, so that it is only Love 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 249 

that makes him accept or guard his crown : in the second 
place, his chief greatness consists in the exercise of this love, 
and he is truly to be revered only so far as his nets and 
thoughts are those of kindness ; so that Love is the light of 
his crown, as well as the giver of it : lastly, because his 
strength depends on the affections of his people, and it is only 
their love which can securely crown him, and for ever. So 
that Love is the strength of his crown as well as the light 
of it. 

Then, surrounding the King, or in various obedience to 
him, appear the dependent virtues, as Fortitude, Temperance, 
Truth, and other attendant spirits, of all which I cannot now 
give account, wishing you only to notice the one to whom are 
entrusted the guidance and administration of the public reve- 
nues. Can you guess Avliich it is likely to be ? Charity, you 
would have thought, should have something to do with the 
business ; but not so, for she is too hot to attend carefully to 
it. Prudence, perhaps, you think of in the next place. No, 
she is too timid, and loses opportunities in making up her 
mind. Can it be Liberality then ? No: Liberality is entrust- 
ed with some small sums ; but she is a bad accountant, and is 
allowed no important place in the exchequer. But the trea- 
sures are given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too 
little in modern times, as distinct from others ; Magnanimity: 
larfreness of heart : not softness or Aveakness of heart, mind 

to ' 

you — but capacity of heart — the great measuring virtue, 
which weighs in heavenly balances all that may be given, 
and all that may be gained ; and sees how to do noblest 
things in noblest ways : which of two goods comprehends 
and therefore chooses the greatest : which of two personal 
sacrifices dares and accepts the largest : which, out of the 
avenues of beneficence, treads always that which opens far- 
thest into the blue fields of futurity : that character, in fine, 

11* 



250 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

M'hicli, in those words taken by us at first for tlie description 
of a Queen among the nations, looks less to the present power 
than to the distant promise ; "Strength and honour are in her 
clothing, — and she shall rejoice in time to come." 



ASSIMILATION AND INDIVIDUALITY. 

It is a lamentable and unnatural tiling to see a number of 
men subject to no government, actuated by no ruling princi- 
ple, and associated by no common affection : but it would be 
a more lamentable thing still, were it possible, to see a num- 
ber of men so oppressed into assimilation as to have no more 
any individual hope or character, no differences in aim, no 
dissimilarities of passion, no irregularities of judgment; a 
society in which no man could help another, since none would 
be feebler than himself; no man admire another, since none 
would be stronger than himself; no man be grateful to ano- 
ther, since by none he could be relieved ; no man reverence 
another, since by none he could be instructed ; a society in 
which every soul would be as the syllable of a stammerer 
instead of the word of a speaker, in which every man would 
w:dk as in a frightful dream, seeing spectres of himself, in 
everlasting multiplication, gliding helplessly around him in a 
speechless darkness. Therefore it is that perpetual difference, 
play, and change in groups of form are more essential to 
them even than their being subdued by some great gathering 
law : the law is needful to them for their perfection and their 
power, but the diff^n-ence is needful to them for their life. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 251 



A S0LE:\IX Tv'AP.XIXG. 



The phases of transition in the moral temper of the falling 
Venetians, during their fall, were from piide to infidelity, and 
fi-om infidelity to the unscrupulous jo^^rsi^eV of pleasure. Dur- 
ing the last years of the existence of the state, the minds 
both of the nobility and the people seem to have been set 
simply upon the attainment of the means of self-indulgence. 
There was not strength enough in them to be proud, nor 
forethought enough to be ambitious. One by one the posses- 
sions of the state were abandoned to its enemies; one by one 
the channels of its trade were forsaken by its own languor, 
or occupied and closed against it by its more energetic rivals ; 
and the time, the resources, and the thoughts of the nation 
were exclusively occuj)ied in the invention of such fantastic 
and costly pleasures as might best amuse their apathy, lull 
their remorse, or disguise their ruin. 

It is as needless, as it is painful, to trace the steps of her 
final ruin. That ancient curse was upon her, the curse of the 
cities of the plain, " Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance 
of idleness." By the inner burning of her own passions, as 
fatal as the fiery rain of Gomorrah, she was consumed from 
her place among the nations ; and her ashes are choking the 
channels of the dead salt sea. 



LIFE. 



Among the countless analogies by which the nature and 
relations of the human soul are illustrated in the material 
creation, none are more striking than the impressions insepa- 
rably connected with the active and dormant states of matter. 



2o2 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

I have elsewhere endeavoured to show, that no inconsiderable 
part of the essential characters of Beauty depended on the 
expression of vital energy in organic things, or on the subjec- 
tion to such energy, of things naturally passive and power- 
less. I need not here repeat, of what was then advanced, 
more than the statement which I believe will meet with 
general acceptance, that things in other respects alike, as in 
tlieir substance, or uses, or outward forms, are noble or 
ignoble in proportion to the fulness of the life which either 
they themselves enjoy, or of whose acti(m they bear the evi- 
dence, as sea sands are made beautii'ul by their bearing the 
seal of the motion of the waters. And this is especially true 
of all objects which bear upon them the impress of the high- 
est order of creative life, that is to say, of the mind of man : 
they become noble or ignoble in proportion to the amount of 
the energy of that mind which has visibly been employed 
upon them. But most peculiarly and imperatively does the 
rule hold with respect to the creations of Architecture, 
which being properly capable of no other life than this, and 
being not essentially composed of things pleasant in them- 
selves, — as music of sweet sounds, or painting of fair colours, 
but of inert substance, — depend, for their dignity and plea- 
surableness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid expression 
of the intellectual life which has been concerned in their pro- 
duction, 

Xow in all other kind of energies except that of man's 
mind, there is no question as to what is life, and what is not. 
Vital sensibility, whether vegetable or animal, may, indeed, 
be reduced to so great feebleness, as to render its existence a 
matter of question, but when it is evident at all, it is evident 
as such : there is no mistaking any imitation or pretence of 
it for the life itself; no mechanism nor galvanism can take its 
place ; nor is any resemblance of it so striking as to involve 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 253 

eyen hesitation in the judgment ; although many occur wliich 
tlie human imagination takes pleasm-e in exalting, without 
for an instant losing sight of the real nature of the dead 
things it animates ; but rejoicing rather in its own excessive 
life, which puts gesture into clouds, and joy into waves, and 
voices into rocks. 

But when we begin to be concerned, with the energies of 
man, we find ourselves instantly dealing with a double crea- 
ture. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious coun- 
terpart, w^hich it is at his peiil if he do not cast oflT and deny. 
Thus he has a true and false (otherwise called a living and 
dead, or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a 
false hope, a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and 
a false hfe. His true life is like that of lower organic beings, 
the independent force by which he moulds and governs 
external things ; it is a force of assimilation which converts 
everything around him into food, or into instruments ; and 
which, however humbly or obediently it may listen to or fol- 
low the guidance of superior intelligence, never forfeits its 
own authority as a judging principle, as a will capable either 
of obeying ox rebelling. Flis false life is, indeed, but one of 
the conditions of death or stupor, but it acts, even when it 
cannot be said to animate, and is not always easily known 
from the true. It is that life of custom and accident in which 
many of us pass much of our time in the world ; that life in 
which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we 
do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand ; that 
life which is overlaid by the weight of tilings external to it, 
and is moulded by them, instead of assimilating them ; that, 
which instead of growing and blossoming under any whole- 
some dew, is crystallised over with it, as with hoar frost, and 
becomes to the true life what an arborescence is to a tree, a 
candied agglomeration of thoughts and habits foreign to it, 



254 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

biittle, obstinate, and icy, wliich can neither bend nor grow, 
but must be crusli'jd and broken to bits, if it stand in our 
way. All men are liable to be in some dygreo frost-bitten in 
this sort ; all are partly encumbered and crusted over with 
idle matter ; only, if they have real life in them, they are 
always breaking this bark away in noble rents, until it 
becomes, like the black strips upon the birch-tree, only a 
witness of their own inward strength. But, with all the 
eiforts that the best men make, much of their being passes in 
a kind of dream, in which they indeed move, and play their 
parts sufficiently, to the eyes of their fellow-dreamers, but 
have no clear consciousness of what is around them, or within 
them ; blind to the one, insensible to the other, vw^poj. I 
would not press the definition into its darker application to 
the dull heart and heavy ear ; I have to do with it only as it 
refers to the too frequent condition of natural existence, whe- 
ther of nations or individuals, settling commonly upon them 
in proportion to their age. The life of a nation is usually, 
like the flow of a lava stream, first blight and fierce, then 
languid and covered, at last advancing only by the tumbling 
over and over of its frozen blocks. And that last condition 
is a sad one to look upon. All the steps are marked most 
clearly in the arts, and in Architecture more than in any 
other ; for it, being especially dependent, as we have just 
said, on the warmth of the true life, is also peculiarly sensible 
of the hemlock cold of the false, and I do not know anything 
more oppressive, when the mind is once awakened to its cha- 
racteristics, than the aspect of a dead architecture. The 
feebleness of childhood is full of promise and of interest, — 
the struggle of imperfect knowledge full of energy and con- 
tinuity, — but to see impotence and rigidity settling upon the 
form of the developed man ; to see the types which once had 
the die of thought struck fresh uuon them, worn flat by over- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 255 

use ; to see the shell of the living creature in its adult form, 
when its colours are faded, and its inhabitant perished, — this 
is a siglit more humiliating, more melancholy, than tlie 
vanishing of all knowledge, and the return to confessed and 
helpless infiincy. 



LOVE AND FEAR. 



Two great and principal passions are evidently ap})ointed 
by the Deity to rule the life of man ; namely, the love of God, 
and the fear of sin, and of its companion — Death. How 
many motives we have for Love, how much there is in the 
universe to kindle our admiration and to claim our gratitude, 
there are, hap})ily, multitudes among us who both feel and 
teach. But it has not, I think, been sufficiently considered 
how evident, throughout the system of creation, is the pur- 
pose of God that we should often be affected by Fear; not 
the sudden, selfish, and contemptible fear of immediate dan- 
ger, but the fear which arises out of the contemplation of 
great powers in destructive operation, and generally from the 
perception of the presence of death. Nothing appears to me 
more remarkable than the array of scenic magnificence by 
which the imagination is appalled, in myriads of instances, 
when the actual danger is comparatively small ; so that the 
utmost possible impression of awe shall be produced upon 
the minds of all, though direct suffering is inflicted upon 
few. Consider, for instance, the moral effect of a single 
thunder-storm. Perhaps two or three persons may be struck 
dead within the space of a hundred square miles; and their 
deaths, unaccompanied by the scenery of the storm, would 



256 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

produce little more than a momentary sadness in tlie busy 
hearts of living men. But the preparation for the Judgment, 
by all that mighty gathering of clouds ; by the questioning 
of the forest leaves, in their terrified stillness, which way the 
winds shall go forth ; by the murmuring to each other, deep 
in the distance, of the destroying angels before they draw 
forth their swords of fire ; by the march of the funeral dark- 
ness in the midst of the noon-day, and the rattling of the 
dome of heaven beneath the chariot-wheels of death; — on 
how many minds do not these produce an impression almost 
as great as the actual witnessing of the fatal issue ! and how 
strangely are the expressions of the threatening elements 
fitted to the apprehension of the human soul ! The lurid 
colour, the h^ng, irregular, convulsive sound, the ghastly 
shapes of flaming and heaving cloud, are all as true and faith- 
ful in their appeal to our instinct of danger, as the moan- 
ing or wailing of the human voice itself is to our instinct of 
pity. It is not a reasonable calculating terror which they 
awake in us; it is no matter that we count distance by 
seconds, and measure probability by averages. That shadow 
of the thunder-cloud will still do its w^ork upon our hearts, 
and. we shall watch its passing away as if we stood upon the 
threshing-floor of Araunah. 

And this is equally the case with respect to all the other 
destructive phenomena of the universe. From the mightiest 
of them to the gentlest, from the earthquake to the summer 
shower, it will be found that they are attended by certain 
aspects of threatening, which strike terror into the hearts of 
multitudes more numerous a thousandfold than those who 
actually suffer from the ministries of judgment ; and that 
besides the fearfulness of these immediately dangerous phe- 
nomena, there is an occult and subtle horror belonging to 
many aspects of the creation around us, calculated often to 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 257 

fill US with serious thought, even in our times of quietness and 
peace.* 



INYOLUNTART INSTRUMENTS OF GOOD. 

Wherever we see the virtue of ardent labour and self-sur- 
rendering to a single purpose, wherever we find constant 
reference made to the written scripture of natural beauty, this 
at least we know is great and good, this we know is not 
granted by the counsel of God, without purpose, nor main- 
tiiined without result : Their interpretation we may accept, into 
their labour we may enter, but tliey themselves must look to 
it, if what they do has no intent of good, nor any reference to 
the Giver of all gifts. Selfish in their industry, unchastened in 
their wills, ungrateful for the Spirit that is upon them, they 
may yet be helmed by that Spirit wdiithersoever the Gover- 
nor listeth; involuntary instrunaents they may become of 
others' good ; unwillingly they mny bless Israel, doubtingly 
discomfit Amalek, but shortcoming there will be of their 
glory, and sure, of their punishment. 



THE SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE. 

It seems to me, not only that this feeling is in most cases 
wholly wanting in those who forward the devotional build- 

* The Love of God is, however, always shown by the predomiuauce or 
greater sum of good in the end ; but never by the annihilation of evil. The 
modern doubts of eternal punishment are not so much the consequence of 
benevolence as of feeble powers of reasoning. Every one admits that God 
brings finite good out of finite evil. Why not, therefore, infinite good out 
of infinite evil? 



258 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ings of the present day ; but that it would even be regarded 
as an ignorant, dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by- 
many among us. I have not space to enter into dispute of 
all the various objections which may be urged against it — 
they are many and specious; but I may, perhaps, ask the 
reader's patience while I set down those simple reasons which 
cause me to believe it a good and just feeling, and as well- 
pleasing to God and honourable in men, as it is beyond all dis- 
pute necessary to the production of any great work in the 
kind with which we are at pi-esent concei-ned. 

Now, first, to define this Spirit of Sacrifice, clearly. I have 
said that it prompts us to the offering of precious things, 
merely because they are precious, not because they are useful 
or necessary. It is a spirit, for instance, which of two mar- 
bles, equally beautiful, applicable, and durable, would choose 
the more costl}^, because it was so, and of two kinds of decora- 
tion, equally effective, w^ould choose the more elaborate 
because it was so, in order that it might in the same compass 
present more cost and more thought. It is therefore most 
unreasoning and enthusiastic, and perhaps best negatively 
defined, as the opposite of the prevalent feeling of modern 
time, which desires to produce the largest results at the least 
cost. 

Of this feeling, then, there are two distinct forms : the first, 
the wish to exercise self-denial for the sake of self discipline 
merelv, a wish acted upon in the abandonment of things 
loved or desired, there being no direct call or purjDose to be 
answ^ered by so doing ; and the second, the desire to honour 
oj- please some one else by the costliness of the sacrifice. Tlie 
pi-aclice is, in the first case, either private or public ; but most 
fi-equcnitly, and perhaps nK)St properly, private • while, in the 
latter case, the act is commonly, and wiih greatest advantage, 
public. Now, it cannot but at first appear futile to assert the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 259 

expediency of self-denial for its own sake, when, for so many 
sakes, it is every day necessary to a far greater degree than 
any of us practise it. But I believe it is just because we do 
not enough acknowledge or contemplate it as a good in itself, 
that we are apt to fail in its duties when they become impera- 
tive, and to calculate, with some partiality, whether the good 
proposed to others measures or warrants the amount of griev- 
ance to ourselves, instead of accepting with gladness the 
opportunity of sacrifice as a personal advantage. Be this as 
it may, it is not necessary to insist upon the matter here ; 
since there are always higher and more useful channels of 
self-sacrifice, for tliose who choose to practise it, than any 
connected with the arts. 

While in its second branch, that which is especially con- 
cerned with the arts, the justice of the feeling is still more 
doubtful ; it dej^ends on our answ^er to the broad question, 
can the Deity be indeed honoured by the presentation to Him 
of any material objects of value, or by any direction of zeal 
or wisdom which is not immediately beneficial to men ? 

For, observe, it is not now the question whether the fair- 
ness and majesty of a building may or may not answer any 
moral purpose ; it is not tlie reisult of labour in any sort of 
which we are speaking, but the bare and mere costliness — the 
substance and labour and time themselves : are these, we ask, 
independently of their result, acceptable offerings to God, 
and considered by Him as doing Him honour ? So long as 
we refer this question to the decision of feeling, or of con- 
scierice, or of reason merely, it will be contradictorily or 
imperfectly answered ; it admits of entire answer only when 
we have met another and a far different question, whether 
the Bible be iiideed one book or two, and whether the cha- 
racter of God revealed in the Old Testament be other than 
His character revealed in the New. 



260 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Now, it is a most secure trutli, that, although the particular 
ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at any 
given period of man's history, may be by the same divine 
authority abrogated at another, it is impossible that any cha- 
racter of God, appealed to or described in any ordinance past 
or present, can ever be changed, or understood as changed, by 
the abrogation of that ordinance. God is one and the same, 
and is pleased or dis23leased by the same thing for ever, 
although one part of His pleasure may be expressed at one 
time rather than another, and although the mode in which 
His pleasure is to be consulted may be by Him graciously 
modified-to the circumstances of men. Thus, for instance, it 
was necessary that, in order to the understanding by man of 
the scheme of Redemption, that scheme should be foreshown 
from the beginning by the type of l>loody sacrifice. But God 
had no more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of Moses 
than He has now ; He never accef)ted as a propitiation for 
sin any sacrifice but the single one in prospective ; and that 
we may not entertain any shadow of doubt on this subject, 
the worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is proclaimed 
at the very time when typical sacrifice was most imperatively 
demanded. God was a spirit, and could be worshipped only 
in spirit and in truth, as singly and exclusively when every 
day brought its claim of typical and material service or oflTer- 
ing, as now when He asks for none but that of the heart. 

So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure principle that, if in 
the manner of performing any rite at any time, circumstances 
can be traced which we are either told, or may legitimately 
conclude, ^/easec? God at that time, those same circumstances 
will please Him at all times, in the performance of all rites or 
offices to which they may be attached in like manner; unless 
it has been afterwards revealed that, for some special purjDose, 
it is now His will that such circumstances should be with- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2ol 

drawn. And this argument will have all the more force if it 
can be shown that such conditions were not essential to the 
completeness of the rite in its human uses and bearings, and 
only were added to it as being in themselves pleasing to God. 

Now, Avas it necessary to the completeness, as a type, of 
the Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as an explanation of 
divine purposes, that it should cost anything to the person in 
whose behalf it was offered ? On the contrary, the sacrifice 
which it foreshowed, was to be God's free gift ; and the cost 
of, or difficulty of obtaining, the sacrificial type, could only 
render that type in a measure obscure, and less expressive of 
the offering which God would in the end provide for all men. 
Yet this costliness was generally a condition of the accepta- 
bleness of the sacrifice. " Neither will I offer unto the Lord 
my God of that which doth cost me nothing." That costli- 
ness, therefore, must be an acceptable condition in all human 
offerings at all times ; for if it was pleasing to God once, it 
must please Him always, unless directly forbidden by Him 
afterwards, which it has never been. 

Again, was it necessary to the typical perfection of the 
Levitical offering, that it should be the best of the flock? 
Doubtless the spotlessness of the sacrifice renders it more 
expres:sive to the Christian mind; but was it because so 
expressive that it was actually, and in so many words, 
demanded by God? Not at all. It was demanded by Him 
expressly on the same grounds on which an earthly governor 
would demand it, as a testimony of respect. " Offer it now 
unto thy governor." And the less valuable offering was 
rejected, not because it did not image Clirist, nor fulfil the 
purposes of sacrifice, but because it indicated a feeling that 
would grudge the best of its possessions to Him who gave 
them ; and because it was a bold dishonouring of God in the 
sight of man. Whence it may be infallibly concluded, that in 



262 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

whatever offerings we may now see reason to present nnto 
God (I say not w^liat these may be), a condition of their 
acceptableness will be now, as it w^as then, that they should 
be the best of their kind. 

But farther, was it necessary to the carrying out of the 
Mosaical system, that there should be either art or splendour 
in the form or services of the tabernacle or temple? Was it 
necessary to the perfection of any one of their typical offices, 
that there should be that hanging of blue, and purple, and 
scarlet ? those taches of brass and sockets of silver ? that 
working in cedar and overlaying with gold? One thing at 
least is evident : there was a deep and awful danger in it ; a 
danger that the God whom they so worshipped, might be 
associated in the minds of the serfs of Egypt with the gods 
to whom they had seen similar gifts offered and similar honours 
paid. The probability, in our times, of fellowship with the 
feelings of the idolatrous Romanist is absolutely as nothing 
compared with the danger to the Israelite of a sympathy with 
the idolatrous Egyptian ; no speculative, no unproved dan- 
ger ; but proved fatally by their fall during a month's aban- 
donment to their own will; a fall into the most servile idola- 
try ; yet marked by such offerings to their idol as their 
leader was, in the close sequel, instructed to bid them offer to 
God. This danger was imminent, perpetual, and of the most 
awful kind : it was the one against which God made provi- 
sion, not only by commandments, by threatenings, by j^ro- 
mises, the most urgent, repeated, and impressive ; but by tem- 
porary ordinances of a severity so terrible as almost to dim 
for a time, in the eyes of His people, His attribute of mercy. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 263 



HUMAN LIFE. 



At the debate of King Edwin with his courtiers and priests, 
whether he ought to receive the Gospel preached to him by 
Paidinus, one of bis nobles spoke as follows : — 

"The present life, O king! weighed with the time that is 
unknown, seems to me like this. When you are sitting at a 
feast with your earls and thanes in winter time, and the fire 
is lighted, and the hall is warmed, and it rains and snows, 
and the storm is loud without, there comes a sparrow, and 
flies through the house. It comes in at one door, and goes 
out at the other. While it is within, it is not touched by the 
winter's storm ; but it is but for the twinkling of an eye, for 
from winter it comes and to winter it returns. So also this 
life of man endureth for a little space ; what goes before, or 
what follows after, we know not. Wherefore, if this new 
lore bring anything more certain, it is fit that we should fol- 
low it." 

Hear another story of those early times. 

The king of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon, at the siege 
of Asshur, or Arsur, gave audience to some emirs from Sama- 
ria and Naplous. They found him seated on the ground on a 
sack of straw. They expressing surprise, Godfrey answered 
them : " May not the earth, out of which we came, and 
which is to be our dwelling after death, serve us for a seat 
during life ?" 

It is long since such a throne has been set in the reception- 
chambers of Christendom, or such an answer heard from the 
lips of a king. 



264 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



ASCETICISM. 



Tliree principal forms of asceticism have existed in this 
weak world. Religious asceticism, being the refusal of plea- 
sure and knowledge for the sake (as supposed) of religion ; 
seen chiefly in the middle ages. Military asceticism, being 
the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of power ; 
seen chiefly in tlie early days of Sparta and Rome. And 
monetary asceticism, consisting in the refusal of pleasure and 
knowledge for the sake of money ; seen in the present days 
of London and Manchester. 

" We do not come here to look at the mountains," said the 
Carthusian to me at the Grande Chartreuse. " We do not 
come here to look at the mountains," the Austrian generals 
would say, encami)ing by the shores of Garda. " We do not 
come here to look at the mountains," so the thriving manu- 
facturers tell me, between Rochdale and Halifax. 

All these asceticisms have their bright and their dark sides. 
I myself like the military asceticism best, because it is not so 
necessarily a refusal of general knowledge as the two others* 
but leads to acute and marvellous use of mind, and perfect 
use of body. Nevertheless, none of the three are a healthy 
or central state of man. There is much to be respected in 
each, but they are not what we should wish large numbers 
of men to become. A monk of La Ti-appe, a French soldier 
of the Imperial Guard, and a thriving mill-OAvner, supposing 
each a type, and no more than a type, of his class, are all 
interesting specimens of humanity, but narrow ones, — so nar- 
row that even all the three together would not make a perfect 
man. Nor does it appear in any way desirable that either of 
the three classes should extend itself so as to include a major- 
ity of the persons in the world. 



PJRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 265 

CHEERFULNESS. 

Cheerfulness is just as natural to the heart of a man in 
strong health as color to his cheek ; and wherever there is 
habitual gloom, there must be either bad air, unwholesome 
food, improperly severe labour, or erring habits of life. 



FANCY AND REALITY. 

Be assured of the great truth — that what is impossible in 
reality is ridiculous in fancy. If it is not in the nature of 
things that peasants should be gentle and happy, then the 
imagination of such peasantry is ridiculous, and to delight in 
such imagination wrong ; as delight in any kind of falsehood 
is always. But if in the nature of things it be possible that 
among the wildness of hills the human heart should be refined, 
and if the comfort of dress, and the gentleness of language, 
and the joy of progress in knowledge, and of variety in 
thought, are possible to thq mountaineer in his true existence, 
let us strive to write this true poetry upon the rocks before 
we indulge it in our visions, and try whether, among all the 
fine arts, one of the finest be not that of painting cheeks with 
health rather than rouge. 

" But is such refinement possible ? Do not the conditions 
of the mountain peasant's life, in the plurality of instances, 
necessarily forbid it ?" 

As bearing sternly on this question, it is necessary to exa- 
mine one peculiarity of feeling which manifests itself among 
the European nations, so far as I have noticed, irregularly, — ■ 
appearing sometimes to be the characteristic of a particular 
time, sometimes of a particular race, sometimes of a particu- 

12 



266 PKEcrous thoughts. 

lar locality, and to involve at once much that is to be blamed 
and much that is praiseworthy. I mean the capability of en- 
during^ or even delighting in, the contemplation of objects of 
terror — a sentiment which especially influences the temper 
of some groups of mountaineers, and of which it is necessary 
to examine the causes, before we can form any conjecture 
whatever as to the real effect of mountains on human cha- 
racter. 

For instance, the unhappy alterations which have lately 
taken place in the town of Lucerne have still spared two of 
its ancient bridges ; both of which, being long covered walks, 
appear, in past times, to have been to the population of the 
town what the Mall was to London, or the Gardens of the 
Tuileries are to Paris. For the continual contemplation of 
those who sauntered from pier to pier, pictures were painted 
on the woodwork of the roof. These pictures, in the one 
bridge, represent all the important Swiss battles and victories ; 
in the other they are the well-known series of which Long- 
fellow has made so beautiful a use in the Golden Legend, the 
Dance of Death. 

Imagine the countenances with which a committee, ap- 
pointed for the establishment of a new " promenade" in some 
flourishing modern town, would receive a proposal to adorn 
such promenade with pictures of the Dance of Death. 

Now just so far as the old bridge at Lucerne, with the 
pure, deep, and blue water of the Reuss eddying down 
between its piers, and with the sweet darkness of green hills, 
and far-away gleaming of lake and Alps alternating upon the 
eye on either side ; and the gloomy lesson frowning in the 
shadow, as if the deep tone of a passing-bell, overhead, were 
mingling for ever with the plashing of the river as it glides 
by beneath ; just so far, I say, as this differs from the straight 
and smooth strip of level dust, between two rows of round- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 267 

topped acacia trees, wherein the inhabitants of an English 
watering-phice or Frencli fortified town take their delight, — 
so fir I believe the life of the old Lncernois, with all its 
happy waves of light, and mountain strength of will, and 
solemn expectation of eternity, to have differed from the 
generality of the lives of those who saunter for their habitual 
hour up and down the modern promenade. But the gloom 
is not always of this noble kind. As we penetrate farther 
among the hills we shall find it becoming very painful. We 
are walking, perhaps, in a summer afternoon, np the valley 
of Zermatt (a German valley), the sun shining brightly on 
grassy knolls and through fringes of pines, tlie goats leaping 
happily, and the cattle bells linging sweetly, and the snowy 
mountains shining like heavenly castles fir above. We see, 
a little way off, a small white chapel, sheltered behind one 
of the flowery hillocks of mountain turf; and we approach 
its little window, thinking to look through it into some quiet 
home of prayer ; but the window is grated w4th iron, and 
open to the winds, and when we look through it, behold — 
a heap of white human bones mouldering into w^hiter dust ! 

So also in that same sweet valley, of which I have just been 
speaking, between Chamouni anxl the Valais, at every turn 
of the pleasant pathway, where the scent of the thyme lies 
richest upon its rocks, we shall see a little cross and shrine 
set under one of them ; and go up to it, hoping to receive 
some happy thought of the Redeemer, by whom all these 
lovely things were made, and still consist. But when we 
come near — behold, beneath the cross, a rude picture of souls 
tormented in red tongues of hell fire, and pierced by demons. 

As we pass towards Italy the appearance of this gloom 
deepens ; and when we descend the southern slope of the 
Alps we shall find this bringing forward of the image of 
Death associated with an endurance of the most painful 



268 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

aspects of disease ; so that conditions of human suffering, 
which in any other country would be confined in hospitals, 
are permitted to be openly exhibited by the wayside ; and 
with this exposure of the degraded human form is farther 
connected an insensibility to ugliness and imperfection in 
other tilings ; so that the ruined wall, neglected garden, and 
uncleansed chamber, seem to unite in expressing a gloom of 
spirit possessing the inhabitants of the whole land. It does 
not appear to arise from poverty, nor careless contentment 
with little : there is here nothing of Irish recklessness or 
humour ; but there seems a settled obscurity in the soul, — 
a chill and plague, as if risen out of a sepulchre, which partly 
deadens, partly darkens, the eyes and hearts of men, and 
breathes a leprosy of decay through every breeze and every 
stone. "Instead of well-set hair, baldness, and burning in- 
stead of beauty." 

Nor are definite proofs wanting that the feeling is indepen- 
dent of mere poverty or indolence. In the most gorgeous 
and costly palace garden the statues will be found green with 
moss, the terraces defaced or broken ; the palace itself, partly 
coated with marble, is left in other places rough with cement- 
less and jagged brick, its iron balconies bent and rusted, its 
pavements overgrown with grass. The more energetic the 
effort has been to recover from this state, and to shake off all 
appearance of poverty, the more assuredly the curse seems to 
fasten on the scene, and the unslaked mortar, and unfinished 
wall, and ghastly desolation of incompleteness, entangled in 
decay, strike a deeper despondency into the beholder. 

The feeling would be also more easily accounted for if it 
appeared consistent in its regardlessness of beauty, —if what 
was done were altogether as inefficient as what was deserted. 
But the balcony, though rusty and broken, is delicate in 
design, and suj^ported on a nobly carved slab of marble ; the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 269 

window, though a mere black rent in ragged plaster, is encir- 
cled by a garland of vine and fronted by a thicket of the 
sharp leaves and aurora-colonred flowers of the oleander ; the 
court-yard, overgrown by mournful grass, is terminated by a 
bright fresco of gardens and fountains ; the corpse, borne 
with the bare face to heaven, is strewn with flowers ; beauty 
is continually mingled with the shadow of death. 

So also is a kind of merriment, — not true cheerfulness, nei- 
ther careless or idle jesting, but a determined effort at gaiety, 
a resolute laughter, mixed with much satire, grossness, and 
practical buffoonery, and, it always seemed to me, void of all 
comfort or hope, — with this eminent character in it also, that 
it is capable of touching with its bitterness even the most 
fearful subjects, so that as the love of beauty retains its ten- 
derness in the presence of death, this love of jest also retains 
its boldness, and the skeleton becomes one of the standard 
masques of the Italian comedy. When I was in Venice, in 
1850, the most j^opular j^iece of the comic opera was "Death 
and the Cobbler," in which the point of the plot was the suc- 
cess of a village cobbler as a physician, in consequence of the 
appearance of Death to him beside the bed of every patient 
who was not to recover ; and the most applauded scene in it 
was one in which the physician, insolent in success, and swol- 
len with luxury, was himself taken down into the abode of 
Death, and thrown into an agony of terror by being shown 
lives of men, under the form of wasting lamps, and his own 
ready to expire. 



2V0 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 



The reason that preacliing is so commonly ineffectual is, 
that it calls on men oftener to work for God, than to behold 
God working for them. In every rebuke that we utter of 
men's vices, we put forth a claim upon their hearts : if for 
every assertion of God's demands from them, we could sub- 
stitute a display of his kindness to them ; if side by side with 
every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises 
of immortality ; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of 
an awful Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not 
deny, are always unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive, 
we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, but all- 
beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a 
heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in 
the market-place. At all events, whatever may be the inabi- 
lity in this present life to mingle the full enjoyment of the 
Divine works with the full discharge of every practical duty, 
and confessedly in many cases this must be, let us not attri- 
bute the inconsistency to an^ indignity of the faculty of con- 
templation, but to the sin and the suffering of the fallen state, 
and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to 
the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right 
or agreeable with God's will, while men are perishing round 
about us, while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and 
death, and all the powers of the air, are working wildly and 
evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven, that any 
of us should take hand from the plough ; but this we know, 
that there will come a time when the service of God shall be 
the beholding of him ; and though in these stormy seas, 
where we are now driven up and down, his Spirit is dimly 
seen on the face of the waters, and we are left to cast anchors 
out of the stern, and wish for the day, that day will come. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 271 

when, witli tlie evangelists on the crystal and stable sea, all 
the creatures of God shall be fall of eyes within, and there 
shall be " no more curse, but his servants shall serve him, and 
shall see his face." 



It is not possible to express intense wickedness w^ithout 
some condition of degradation. Malice, subtlety, and pride, 
in their extreme, cannot be written upon noble forms ; and I 
am aware of no effort to represent the Satanic mind in the 
angelic form, which has succeeded in painting. Milton suc- 
ceeds only because he separately describes the movements of 
the mind, and therefore leaves iiimself at liberty to make the 
form heroic ; but that form is never distinct enough to be 
painted. Dante, who will not leave even external forms ob- 
scure, degrades them before he can feel them to be demonia- 
cal ; so also John Bunyau : both of them, I think, having 
firmer fiith than Milton's in their own creations, and deeper 
insight into the nature of sin. Milton makes his fiends too 
noble, and misses the foulness, inconstancy, and fury of 
wickedness. His Satan possesses some virtues, not the less 
virtues for being applied to evil purpose. Courage, resolu- 
tion, patience, deliberation in council, this latter being emi- 
nently a wise and holy character, as opposed to the "Insania" 
of excessive sin : and all this, if not a shallow and false, is a 
smoothed and artistical, conception. On the other hand, I 
have always felt that there was a peculiar grandeur in the 
iiidesciibable ungovernable fury of Dante's fiends, ever short- 
ening its own powers, and disap[)ointing its own purposes; 
the deaf, blind, speechless, unspeakable rage, fierce as the 



272 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

lightning, but erring from its mark or turning senselessly 
against itself, and still further debased by foulness of form 
and action. Something is indeed to be allowed for the rude 
feelings of the time, but I believe all such men as Dante are 
sent into the world at the time when they can do their work 
best ; and that, it being appointed for bim to give to mankind 
the most vigorous realization possible both of Hell and 
Heaven, he was born both in the country and at the time 
which furnished the most stern opposition of Horror and 
Beauty, and permitted it to be written in the clearest terms. 



man's delight in god's works. 

Let us once comprehend the holier nature of the art of 
man, and begin to look for the meaning of the spirit, however 
syllabled, and the scene is changed ; and we are changed also. 
Those small and dexterous creatures whom once we wor- 
shipped, those fur-capped divinities with sceptres of camel's 
hair, peering and poring in their one-windowed chambers 
over the minute preciousness of the laboured canvass ; how 
are they swept away and crushed into unnoticeable darkness ! 
And in their stead, as the walls of the dismal rooms that en- 
closed them, and us, are struck by the four winds of Heaven, 
and rent away, and as the world opens to our sight, lo ! far 
back into all the depths of time, and forth from all the fields 
that have been sown with human life, how the harvest of the 
dragon's teeth is springing ! how the companies of the gods 
are ascending: out of the earth ! The dark stones that have 
so long been the sepulchres of the thoughts of nations, and 
the forgotten ruins wherein their faith lay charnelled, give up 
the dead that were in them ; and beneath the Egyptian ranks 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 273 

of sultry and silent rock, and amidst the dim golden lights of 
the Byzantine dome, and out of the confused and cold sha- 
dows of the Northern cloister, behold, the multitudinous souls 
come forth with singing, gazing on us with the soft eyes of 
newly comprehended sympathy, and stretching their white 
arms to us across the grave, in the solemn gladness of ever- 
lasting brotherhood. 

The other danger to which, it was above said, we were 
primarily exposed under our present circumstances of life, is 
the pursuit of vain pleasure, that is to say, false pleasure ; 
dehght, which is not indeed delight; as knowledge vainly 
accumulated, is not indeed knowledge. And this we are 
exposed to chiefly in the fact of our ceasing to be children. 
For the child does not seek false pleasure ; its pleasures are 
true, simple, and instinctive : but the youth is apt to abandon 
his early and true delight for vanities, — seeking to be like 
men, and sacrificing his natural and pure enjoyments to his 
pride. In like manner, it seems to me that modern civiliza- 
tion sacrifices much pure and true pleasure to various forms 
of ostentation. from which it can receive no fruit. Consider, 
for a moment, what kind of pleasures are open to human 
nature, undiseased. Passing by the consideration of the plea- 
sures of the higher affections, which lie at the root of every- 
thing, and considering the definite and practical pleasures of 
daily life, there is, first, the pleasure of doing good; the 
greatest of all, only apt to be despised from not being often 
enough tasted : and then, I know not in what order to put 
them, nor does it matter, — the pleasure of gaining knowledge; 
the pleasure of the excitement of imagination and emotion 
(or poetry and passion) ; and, lastly, the gratification of the 
senses, first of the eye, then of the ear, and then of the others 
in their order. 

All these we are apt to make subservient to the desire of 

12* 



274 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

praise ; nor unwisely, when the praise sougat is God's and 
the conscience's : but if the sacrifice is made for man's admi- 
ration, and knowledge is only sought for praise, passion 
repressed or affected for praise, and the arts practised for 
praise, we are feeding on the bitterest apples of Sodom, suf- 
fering always ten mortifications for one delight. And it 
seems to me, that in the modern civilized world we make 
such sacrifice doubly : first, by labouring for merely ambitious 
purposes ; and secondly, which is the main point in question, 
by being ashamed of simple pleasure, more especially of the 
pleasure in sweet colour and form, a pleasure evidently so 
necessary to man's perfectness and virtue, that the beauty of 
colour and form has been given lavislily throughout the wOiole 
of creation, so that it may become the food of aU, and with 
such intricacy and subtlety that it may deeply employ the 
thoughts of all. If we refuse to accept the natural delight 
which the Deity has thus provided for us, we must either 
become ascetics, or we must seek for some base and guilty 
pleasures to replace those of Paradise, which we have denied 
ourselves. 

Some years ago, in passing through some of the cells of the 
Grand Chartreuse, noticing that the window of each apart- 
ment looked across the little garden of its inhabitant to the 
wall of the cell opposite, and commanded no other view, I 
asked the monk beside me why the window was not rather 
made on the side of the cell whence it would open to the 
solemn fields of the Alpine valley. " We do not come here," 
he replied, " to look at the mountains." 

The same answer is given, practically, by the men of tliis 
century, to every such question ; only the walls with which 
they enclose themselves are those of Pride, not of Prayer. 



PRECIOFS THOUGHTS. 275 



THE HIGHLANDEE. 



The right faith of man is not intended to give him repose, 
but to enable him to do his work. 

It is not intended that he should look away from the 
place he lives in now, and cheer himself with thoughts 
of the place he is to live in next, butr that he should look 
stoutly into this world, in faith that if he does his work 
thoroughly here, some good to others or himself, with w^hich 
however he is not at present concerned, will come of it here- 
after. And this kind of brave, but not very hopeful or cheer- 
ful faith, I perceive to be always rewarded by clear practical 
success and splendid intellectual power ; while the faith which 
dwells on the future fades away into rosy mist, and emptiness 
of musical air. That result indeed follows naturally enough 
on its habit of assuming that things must be right, or must 
come right, when, probably, the fact is, that so far as w^e are 
concerned, they are entirely wrong ; and going wrong : and 
also on its weak and false way of looking on what these reli- 
gious persons call " the bright side of things," that is to say, 
on one side of them only, when God has given them two sides, 
and intended us to see both. 

I was reading but the other day in a book by a zealous, 
useful, and able Scotch clergyman, one of these rhapsodies, 
in w^hich he described a scene in the Highlands to show (he 
said) the goodness of God. In this Highland scene there was 
nothing but sunshine, and fresh breezes, and bleating lambs, 
and clean tartans, and aU manner of pleasantness. Now a 
Highland scene is, beyond dispute, pleasant enough in its own 
way ; but, looked close at, has its shadows. Here, for in- 
stance, is the very fact of one, as pretty as I can remember — 
having seen many. It is a little valley of soft turf, enclosed 
in its narrow oval by jutting rocks and broad flakes of nod- 



276 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ding fern. From one side of it to the other winds, serpen- 
tine, a clear brown stream, drooping into quicker ripple as 
it reaches the end of the oval field, and then, first islanding a 
purple and white rock with an amber pool, it dashes away 
into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket of mountain ash 
and alder. The autumn sun, low but clear, shines on the 
scarlet ash-berries and on the golden birch-leaves, which, fall- 
en here and there, when the breeze has not caught them, rest 
quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in 
the hollow under the thicket, the carcass of a ewe, drowned 
in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs 
protruding through the skin, raven-torn ; and the rags of its 
wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as 
the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current 
plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, surrounded 
on three sides by a chimney-like hollo wness of polished rock, 
down which the foam slips in detached snow-flakes. Round 
the edges of the pool beneath, the water circles slowly, like 
black oil ; a little butterfly lies on its back, its wings glued to 
one of the eddies, its limbs feebly quivering ; a fish rises and 
it is gone. Low^er down the stream, I can just see, over a 
knoll, the green and damp turf I'oofs of four or five hovels, 
built at the edge of a morass, which is trodden by the cattle 
into a black Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed 
by a few ill-set stepping-stones, with here and there a flat 
slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight ; and at 
the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a boy and a 
dog — a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if 
they had not been there all day starving. I know them, and* 
I know the dog's ribs also, which, are nearly as bare as the 
dead ewe's ; and the child's wasted shoulders, cutting his old 
tartan jacket through, so sharp are they. We will go down 
and talk with the man. 



PEECIOrS THOUGHTS. 277 

Or, that I may not piece pure truth with fancy, for I have 
none of his words set down, let us hear a word or two from 
another such, a Scotchman also, and as true-hearted, and in 
just as fair a scene. I w^rite out the passage, in which I have 
kept his few^ sentences, word for word, as it stands in my 
private diary : — " 22d April (1851). Yesterday I had a long 
walk up the Via GelHa, at Matlock, coming down upon it 
from the hills above, all sown with anemones and violets, and 
murmuring with sweet springs. Above all the mills in the 
valley, the brook, in its first purity, forms a small shallow 
j)Ool, with a sandy bottom covered with cresses, and other 
water plants. A man was wading in it for cresses as I passed 
up the valley, and bade me good-day. I did not go much 
farther ; he was there when I returned. I passed him again, 
about one hundred yards, when it struck me I might as w^ell 
learn all I could about water-cresses ; so I turned back. I 
asked the man, among other questions, what he called the 
common weed, something like water-eress, but with a ser- 
rated leaf, wdiich grows at the edge of nearly all such pools. 
* We calls that brooklirae, liereabouts,' said a voice behind 
me. I turned, and saw three men, miners or manufxcturers — 
two evidently Derbyshire men, and respectable-looking in 
their way ; the third, thin, poor, old, and hardei'-featured, and 
utterly in rags. ' Brooklime ?' I said. ' What do you call it 
lime for ?' The man said he did not know% it was called that. 
'You'll find that in the British 'Erba,' said the weak, calm 
voice of the old man. I turned to him in much surprise ; but 
he went on saying something drily (I hardly understood what) 
to the cress-gatherer ; who contradicting him, the old man 
said he ' didn't know fresh water,' he ' knew enough of sa't.' 
' Have you been a sailor?' I asked. 'I was a sailor for eleven 
years and ten months of my life,' he said, in the same strangely 
quiet manner. ' And what are you now ?' ' I lived for ten 



278 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

years after my wife's death by picking up rags and bones ; 
I hadn't much occasion afore.' ' And now how do you live ?' 
' Why, I hves hard and honest, and haven't got to live long,' 
or something to that effect. He then went on, in a kind of 
maundering way about his wife. ' Slie had rheumatism and 
fever very bad ; and her second rib grow'd over her hen cli- 
bone. A' was a clever woman, but a' grow'd to be a very 
little one' (this with an expression of deep melancholy.) 
(Then, after a pause :) ' She died. I never cared much what 
come of me since ; but I know that I shall soon reach her ; 
that's a knowledge I would na gie for the king's crown.' 
' You are a Scotchman, are not you ?' I asked. ' I'm from 
the Isle of Skye, sir ; I'm a McGregor.' I said something 
about his rehgious faith. ' Ye'll know I was bred in the 
Church of Scotland, sir,' he said, 'and I love it as I love my 
own soul ; but I think thae Wesleyan -Methodists ha' got sal- 
vation among them, too.' " 

Truly, tins Highland and English hill-scenery is fiiir enough ; 
but has its shadows ; and deeper colouring, here and there, 
than that of heath and rose. 



TITHES. 

And let us not now lose sight of this broad and unabrogated 
principle — I might say, incapable of being abrogated, so long 
as men shall receive earthly gifts from God. Of all that they 
have his tithe must be rendered to Him, or in so far and in 
so much He is forgotten : of the skill and of the treasure, of 
the strength and of the mind, of the time and of the toil, 
oifering must be made reverently ; and if there be any diifer- 
eiice between the Levitical and the Christian offeiing, it is 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2^9 

that the latter may be just so much the wider in its range as 
it is less typical in its meaning, as it is thankful instead of 
sacrificial. There can be no excuse accepted because the 
Deity does not now visibly dwell in His temple ; if He is 
invisible it is only through our failing faith : nor any excuse 
because other calls are more immediate or more sacred ; this 
ought to be done, and not the other left undone. 



THE HOUSEHOLD ALTAR. 

When men do not love their hearths, nor reverence their 
thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both, and 
that they have never acknowledged the true universality of 
that Christian worship which was indeed to supersede the 
idolatry, but not the piety, of the pagan. Our God is a 
household God, as well as a heavenly one ; He has an altar 
in every man's dwelling ; let men look to it when they rend 
it lightly and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of mere 
ocular delight, it is no question of intellectual pride, or of 
cultivated and critical fancy, how, and with what aspect of 
durability and of completeness, the domestic buildings of a 
nation shall be raised. It is one of those moral duties, not 
with more impunity to be neglected because the perception 
of them depends on a finely toned and baLmced conscientious- 
ness, to build our dwellings with care, and patience, and 
fondness, and diligent completion, and with a view to their 
duration at least for such a period as, in the ordinary course 
of national revolutions, might be supposed likely to extend to 
the entire alteration of the direction of local interests. This 
at the least ; but it would be better if, in every possible in- 
stance, men built their own houses on a scale commensurate 



280 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

rather with their condition at the commencement, than their 
attainments at the termination, of their worldly career ; and 
built them to stand as long as human work at its strongest 
can be hoped to stand ; recording to their children what they 
have been, and from what, if so it had been permitted them, 
they had risen. And when houses are thus built, we may 
have that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all 
other, which does not disdain to treat with respect and 
thoughtfulness the small habitation as well as the large, and 
which invests with the dignity of contented manhood the nar- 
rowness of worldly circumstance. 



EMOTIONS EXCITED BY THE IMAGINATION. 

Examine the nature of your own emotion (if you feel it) at 
the sight of the Alp, and you find all the brightness of that 
emotion hanging, like dew on gossamer, on a curious web of 
subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge. First, you have a 
vague idea of its size, coupled with wonder at the work of 
the great Builder of its walls and foundations ; then an appre- 
hension of its eternity, a pathetic sense of its perpetualness, 
and your own transientness, as of the grass upon its sides ; 
then, and in this very sadness, a sense of strange companion- 
ship with past generations in seeing what they saw. They 
did not see the clouds that are floating over your head ; nor 
the cottage wall on the other side of the field ; nor the road 
by which you are travelling. But they saw that. The wall 
of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to you. 
They have ceased to look upon it ; you will soon cease to 
look also, and the granite wall will be for others. Then, 
mingled with these more solemn imaginations, come the 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



281 



understandings of the gifts and glories of the Alps, the fan- 
cying forth of all the fountains that well from its rocky walls, 
and strong rivers that are born out of its ice, and of all the 
pleasant valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all the chalets 
that gleam among its clouds, and happy farmsteads couched 
upon its pastures ; while together with the thoughts of these, 
rise strange sympathies with all the unknown of human life, 
and happiness, and death, signified by that narrow white 
flame of the everlasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky. 
These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of 
the emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alp. You 
may not trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal 
more in your heart, of evil and good, than you ever can 
trace ; but they stir you and quicken you for all that. Assu- 
redly, so far as you feel more at beholding the snowy moun- 
tain than any other object of the same sweet silvery grey, 
these are the kind of images w^hich cause you to do so ; and, 
observe, these are nothing more than a greater apprehension 
of the facts of the thing. We call the power " Imagination," 
because it imagines or conceives ; but it is only noble imagi- 
nation if it imagines or conceives the truth. 



LIFE NEVER A JEST. 



The playful fancy of a moment may innocently be expressed 
by the passing word ; but he can hardly have learned the 
preciousness of life, who passes days in the elaboration of a 
jest. And, as to what regards the delineation of human cha- 
racter, the natnreof all noble art is to epitomize and embrace 
so much at once, that its subject can never be altogether ludi- 
crous ; it must possess all the solemnities of the whole, not 



282 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

the brightness of the partial, truth. For all truth that makes 
us smile is partial. Tiie novelist amuses us by his relation of 
a particular incident ; but the painter cannot set any one of 
his characters before us without giving some glimpse of its 
whole career. That of which the historian informs us in suc- 
cessive Images, it is the task of the painter to inform us of at 
once, writing upon the countenance not merely the expres- 
sion of the moment, but the history of the life : and the his- 
tory of a life can never be a jest. 



UTILITARIAN ISM. 

The reader will probably remember the sonnets of Words- 
worth which were published at the time when the bill for the 
railroad between Kendal and Bowness was laid before Par- 
liament. His remonstrance was of course in vain ; and I have 
since heard that there are proposals entertained for continu- 
ing tl]is line to Whitehaven through Borroiodale. I tran- 
scribe the note prefixed by Wordsworth to the first sonnet. 

" The degree and kind of attachment which many of the 
yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be 
over-rated. Near the house of one of them stands a magni- 
ficent tree, which a neighbour of the owner advised him to fell 
for profit's sake. ' Fell it ! ' exclaimed the yeoman ; ' I had 
rather fall on my knees and worship it.' It happens, I believe, 
that the intended raihvay would pass through this little pro- 
perty, and I hope that an apology for the answer will not be 
thought necessary by one who enters into the strength of the 
feeling." 

The men who thus feel will always be few, and overborne 
by the thoughtless, avaricious crowd ; but is it right, because 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 283 

they are a minority, that there should be no respect for them, 
no concession to them, that their voice should be utterly with- 
out regard in the council of the nation, and that any attempt 
to defend one single district from the offence and foulness of 
mercenary uses, on the ground of its beauty and power over 
men's hearts, should be met, as I doubt not it would be, by 
total and impenetrable scorn ? 



THE PRE-EMINENCE OP THE SOUL. 

I do not mean to speak of the body and soul as separable. 
The man is made up of both : they are to be raised and glo- 
rified together, and all art is an expression of the one, by and 
through the other. All that I would insist upon is, the neces- 
sity of the whole man being in his work ; the body must be 
in it. Hands and habits must be in it, whether we will or 
not ; but the nobler part of the man may often not be in it. 
And that nobler part acts principally in love, reverence, and 
admiration, together with those conditions of thought which 
arise out of them. For we usually fall into much error by 
considering the intellectual powders as having dignity in them- 
selves, and separable from the heart ; whereas the truth is, 
that the intellect becomes noble and ignoble according to the 
food we give it, and the kind of subjects with which it is 
conversant. It is not the reasoning power which, of itself, is 
noble, but the reasoning power occup'ied with its proper 
objects. Half of the mistakes of metaphysicians have arisen 
from their not observing this ; namely, that the intellect, 
going through the same processes, is yet mean or noble 
according to the matter it deals with, and wastes itself away 
in mere rotatory motion, if it be set to grind straws and dust. 



284 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

If we reason only respecting words, or lines, or any trifling 
and finite things, the reason becomes a contemptible faculty ; 
but reason employed on holy and infinite things, becomes her- 
self holy and infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I mean 
the reader always to understand the work of the entire 
immortal creature, proceeding from a quick, perceptive, and 
eager heart, perfected by the intellect, and finally dealt with 
by the hands, under the direct guidance of these higher 
powers. 

And now observe, the first important consequence of our 
fully undei'standing this pre-eminence of the soul, will be the 
due understanding of that subordination of knowledge 
respecting which so much has already been said. For it 
must be felt at once, that the increase of knowledge, merely 
as such, does not make the soul larger or smaller ; that, in 
the sight of God, all the knowledge man can gain is as 
nothing : but that the soul, for ^vhich the great scheme of 
redemption was laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is all in all ; 
and in the activity, strength, healtli, and well-being of this 
soul, lies the main difference, in His sight, between one man 
and another. And that which is all in all in God's estimate is 
also, be assured, all in all in man's labour ; and to have the 
heart open, and the eyes clear, and the emotions and thoughts 
warm and quick, and not the knowing of this or the other 
fact, is the state needed for all mighty doing in this world. 
And therefore finally, for this, the weightiest of all reasons, 
let us take no pride in our knowledge. We may, in a certain 
sense, be proud of being immortal ; we may be proud of 
being God's children ; we may be proud of loving, thinking, 
seeing, and of all that we are by no human teaching : but not 
of what we have been taught by rote ; not of the ballast and 
freight of the ship of the spirit, but only of its pilotage, 
without which all the freight w^ill only sink it faster, and 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 285 

Strew the sea more richly with its ruin. There is not at this 
moment a youth of twenty, having received what we moderns 
ridiculously call education, but he knows more of everything, 
except the soul, than Plato or St. Paul did ; but he is not 
for that reason a greater man, or fitter for his work, or more 
fit to be heard by others, than Plato or St. Paul. 



THIS V^OELD A HOSTELRY. 

All that in this world enlarges the sphere of affection or 
imagination is to be reverenced, and all those circumstances 
enlarge it which strengthen our memory or quicken our con- 
cej^tion of the dead ; hence it is no light sin to destroy any- 
thing that is old, more especially because, even with the aid 
of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living, occupy a 
space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes ; 
we look upon the world too much as our own, too much as 
if we had possessed it and should possess it for ever, and for- 
get that it is a mere hostelry, of which we occupy the apart- 
ments for a time, which others better than we have sojourned 
in before, who are now where we should desire to be with 
them. 



CLOUDS AS god's DWELLING-PLACE. 

If we try the interpretation in the theological sense of the 
word Heaven^ and examine whether the clouds are spoken of 
as God's dwelling-place, we find God going before the Israel- 
ites in a pillar of cloud ; revealing Himself in a cloud on 



286 PRECIOUS TIlOtJGHTS. 

Sinai ; appearing in a cloud on the mercy-seat, filling the Tem- 
ple of Solomon with the cloudy when its dedication is accepted ; 
appearing in a great cloud to Ezekiel ; ascending into a cloud 
before the eyes of the disciples on Mount Olivet ; and in like 
manner returning to Judgment. " Behold, he cometh with 
clouds, and every eye shall see him." " Then shall they see 
the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power 
and great glory." 



THE NOBLE ENDS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, 
whose summit is God's throne, infinitely above all ; and there 
is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man 
being discontented with his position, as respects the real 
quantity of knowledge he possesses. And, for both of them, 
the only true reasons for contentment with the sum of know- 
ledge they possess are these : that it is the kind of know- 
ledge they need for their duty and happiness in life ; that all 
they have is tested and certain, so far as it is in their power ; 
that all they have is well in order, and within reach when 
they need it ; that it has not cost too much time in the get- 
ting; that none of it, once got, has been lost ; and that there 
is not too much to be easily taken care of. 

Consider these requirements a little, and the evils that 
result in our education and polity from neglecting them. 
Knowledge is mental food, and is exactly to the spirit what 
food is to the body (except that the spirit needs several sorts 
of food, of which knowledge is only one), and it is liable 
to the same kind of misuses. It may be mixed and dis- 
guised by art, till it becomes unwholesome ; it may be refined, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 287 

sweetened, and made palatable, until it has lost all its power 
of nourisbment ; and, even of its best kind, it may be eaten 
to surfeiting, and minister to disease and death. 

Therefore, with respect to knowledge, we are to reason 
and act exactly as with respect to food. We no more live 
to know, than we live to eat. We live to contemplate, enjoy, 
act, adore; and we may know all that is to be known in this 
world, and what Satan knows in the other, without being 
able to do any of these. We are to ask, therefore, first, 
is the knowledge we would have fit food for us, good and 
simple, not artificial and decorated? and secondly, how much 
of it will enable us best for our work; and will leave our 
hearts light, and our eyes clear ? For no more than that is 
to be eaten without the old Eve-sin. 

Observe, also, the difl:erence between tasting knowledge, 
and hoarding it. In this respect it is also like food ; since, in 
some measure, the knowledge of all men is laid up in grana- 
ries, for future use ; much of it is at any given moment dor- 
mant, not fed upon or enjoyed, but in store. And by all it is 
to be remembered, that knowledge in this form may be kept 
without air till it rots, or in such unthreshed disorder that it 
is of no use ; and that, however good or orderly, it is still 
only in being tasted that it becomes of use ; and that men 
may easily starve in their own granaries, men of science, per- 
haps, most of ail, for they are likely to seek accumulation of 
their store, rather than nourishment from it. Yet let it not 
be thought that I would undervalue them. The good and 
great among them are like Joseph, to whom all nations 
sought to buy corn ; or like the sower going forth to sow 
beside all waters, sending forth thither the feet of the ox and 
the ass : only let us remember that this is not all men's work. 
We are not intended to be all keepers of granaries, nor all to 
be measured by the filling of a storehouse ; but many, nay, 



288 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

most of us, are to receive day by day our daily bread, and 
shall be as well nourished and as fit for our labour, and often, 
also, fit for nobler and more divine labour, in feeding from the 
barrel of meal that does not waste, and from the cruse of oil 
that does not fail, than if our barns were filled w^ith plenty, 
and our presses bursting out with new wine. 

It is for each man to find his own measure in this matter ; 
in great part, also, for others to find it for him, w^iile he is 
yet a youth. And the desperate evil of the whole Renais- 
sance system is, that all idea of measure is therein forgotten, 
that knowledge is thought the one and the only good, and it 
is never inquired whether men are vivified by it or paralyzed. 
Let us leave figures. The reader may not believe the ana- 
logy to have been pressing so far ; but let him consider the 
sul)ject himself, let him examine the effect of knowledge in 
his own heart, and see whether the trees of knowledge and 
of life are one now, any more than in Paradise. He must 
feel that the real animating power of knowledge is only in 
the moment of its being first received, when it fills us with 
w^onder and joy ; a joy for which, observe, the previous igno- 
rance is just as necessary as the present knowledge. That 
man is always happy who is in the presence of something 
which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going 
on to know. This is the necessary condition of a finite crea- 
ture \\ith divinely rooted and divinely directed intelligence ; 
this, therefore, its happy state, — but observe, a state, not of 
triumph or joy in what it knows, but of joy rather in the con- 
tinual discovery of new ignorance, continual self-abasement, 
continual astonishment. Once thoroughly our own, the 
knowledge ceases to give us pleasure. It may be practically 
useful to us, it may be good for others, or good for usury to 
obtain more ; but, in itself, once let it be thoroughly famihar, 
and it is dead. The wonder is gone from it, and all the fine 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 289 

colour which it had when first we drew it up out of the infi- 
nite sea. And what does it matter how much or how little of 
it we have laid aside, when our only enjoyment is still in the 
casting of that deep sea line ? What does it matter ? Nay, 
in one respect, it matters much, and not to our advantage. 
For one effect of knowledge is to deaden the force of the ima- 
gination and the original energy of the whole man : under 
the weight of his knowledge he cannot move so lightly as in 
the days of his simplicity. The pack-horse is furnished for 
the journey, the war-horse is armed for war ; but the freedom 
of the field and the hghtness of the limb are lost for both. 
Knowledge is, at best, the pilgrim's burden or the soldier's 
panoply, often a weariness to them both : and the Renaissance 
knowledge is like the Renaissance armour of plate, binding 
and cramping the human form ; while all good knowledo-e is 
like the crusader's chain mail, which throws itself into folds 
with the body, yet it is rarely so forged as that the clasps and 
rivets do not gall us. All men feel this, though they do not 
think of it, nor reason out its consequences. They look back 
to the days of childhood as of greatest happiness, because 
those were the days of greatest wonder, greatest simplicity, 
aud most vigorous imagination. And the -SNihole difference 
between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a 
thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in 
great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in 
pei-petual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge, — con- 
scious, rather, of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power ; a 
fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force 
within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable 
things around him. 

That is what we have to make men, so far as we may. All 
are to be men of genius in their degree, — rivulets or rivers, it 
does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure ; not 

13 



290 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things known and 
numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of 
things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living 
banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the 
flowers, and so pass on. 

Let each man answer for himself how far his knowledge 
has made him this, or how far it is loaded upon him as the 
pyramid is upon the tomb. Let him consider, also, how 
much of it has cost him labour and time that might have been 
spent in healthy, happy action, beneficial to all mankind ; 
how many living souls may have been left un comforted and 
unhelped by him, while his own eyes were failing by the mid- 
night lamp ; how many warm sympathies have died within 
liim as he measured lines or counted letters ; how many 
draughts of ocean air, and steps on mountain-turf, and open- 
ings of the highest heaven he has lost for his knowledge ; how 
much of that knowledge, so dearly bought, is now forgotten 
or despised, leaving only the capacity of Avonder less within 
him, and, as it happens in a thousand instances, perhaps even 
also the capacity of devotion. And let him, — if, after thus 
dealing with his owm heart, he can say that his knowledge 
has indeed been fruitful to him, — yet consider how many there 
are who have been forced by the inevitable laws of modern 
education into toil utterly repugnant to their natures, and that 
in the extreme, until the whole strength of the young soul 
was sapped away; and then pronounce with fearfulness how 
far, and in how many senses, it may indeed be true that the 
wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 

Now all this possibility of evil, observe, attaches to know- 
ledge pursued for the noblest ends, if it be pursued impru- 
dently. I have assumed, in speaking of its efi*ect both on men 
generally and on the artist especially, that it was sought in 
the true love of it, and with all honesty and directness of 



rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 291 

purpose. But this is granting far too mucn in its favour. 
Of knowledge in general, and without qualification, it is said 
by the Apostle that " it puffeth up;" and the father of all 
modern science, writing directly in its praise, yet asserts this 
danger even in more absolute terms, calUng it a " venomous- 
ness" iu the very nature of knowledge itself. 

There is, indeed, much difference in this respect between 
the tendencies of different branches of knowledge ; it being 
a sure rule that exactly in proportion as they are inferior, 
nugatory, or limited in scope, their power of feeding pride is 
greater. Thus philology, logic, rhetoric, and the other 
sciences of the schools, being for the most part ridiculous 
and trifling, have so pestilent an effect upon those who are 
devoted to them, that their students cannot conceive of any 
higher sciences than these, but fmcy that all education ends 
in the knowledge of words : but the true and great sciences, 
more especially natural history, make men gentle and modest 
in proportion to the largeness of their apprehension, and just 
perception of the infiniteness of the things they can never 
know. And this, it seems to me, is the principal lesson we 
are intended to be taught by the book of Job ; for there God 
has tlirown open to us the heart of a man most just and holy, 
and apparently perfect in all things possible to human natui-e 
except humility. For this he is tried : and we are shown 
that no suffering, no self-examinalion, however honest, how- 
ever stern, no searching out of the heart by its own bitter- 
ness, is enough to convince man of his nothingness before 
God ; but that the sight of God's creation will do it. For, 
when the Deity himself has willed to end the temptation, and 
to accomplish in Job that for which it was sent. He does not 
vouchsafe to reason with him, still less does He overwhelm 
him with terror, or confound him by laying open before his 
eyes the book of his iniquities. He opens before him only 



292 PRECIOL'S THOUGHTS. 

the arch of the dayspring, and the fountains of the deep ; and 
amidst the covert of the reeds, and on the heaving waves, He 
bids him watch the kings of the cliildren of pride, — "Behold 
now Behemoth, which I made with thee :" And the work is 
done. 

Thus, if, I repeat, there is any one lesson in the whole book 
wliich stands forth more definitely than another, it is this of 
the holy and humbling influence of natural science on the 
human heart. And yet, even here, it is not the science, but 
the perception, to which the good is owing ; and the natural 
sciences may become as harmful as any others, when they 
lose tliemselves in classification and catalogue-making. Still, 
the principal danger is with the sciences of words and 
methods ; and it was exactly into those sciences that the 
whole energy of men during the Renaissance period was 
thi'own. They discovered suddenly that the world for ten 
centuries had been living in an ungrammatical manner, and 
they made it forthwith the end of human existence to be 
grammatical. And it mattered thenceforth nothing what was 
said or what was done, so only that it was said with scholar- 
ship, and done with system. Falsehood in a Ciceronian dia- 
lect had no opposers ; truth in patois no listeners. A Roman 
phrase was thought worth any number of Gothic facts. The 
sciences ceased at once to be anything more than different 
kinds of grammars, — grammar of language, grammar of 
logic, grammar of ethics, grammar of art ; and the tongue, 
wit, and invention of the human race weie supposed to have 
found their utmost and most divine mission in syntax and 
syllogism, perspective and five ordei-s. 

Of such knowledge as this, nothing but pride could come ; 
and, therefore, I have called the first mental characteristic of 
the Renaissance schools, the " piide" of science. If they had 
reached any science worth the name, they might have loved 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 293 

it ; but of tlie paltry knowledge they possessed, they coukl 
only be proud. There was not anything in it capable of being 
loved. Anatomy, indeed, then first made the subject of accu- 
rate study, is a true science, but not so attractive as to enlist 
the affections strongly on its side : and therefore, like its 
meaner sisters, it became merely a ground for pride ; and the 
one main purpose of the Renaissance artists, in all their 
work, was to show how much they knew. 

There were, of course, noble exceptions ; but chiefly belong- 
ing to the earliest periods of the Renaissance, when its teach- 
ing had not yet produced its full effect. Raphael, Leonardo, 
and Michael Angelo were all trained in the old school ; they 
all had masters who knew the true ends of art, and had 
reached, them ; masters nearly as great as they were them- 
selves, but imbued with the old religious and earnest spirit, 
which their disciples receiving from them, and drinking at the 
same time deeply from all the fountains of knowledge opened 
in their day, became the world's w^onders. Then the didl 
wondering world believed that their greatness rose out of 
their new knowledge, instead of out of that ancient religious 
root, in which to abide was life, from which to be severed was 
annihilation. And from that day to tliis, they have tried to 
produce Michael Angelos and Leonardos by teaching the 
barren sciences, and still have mourned and marvelled that 
no more Michael Angelos came ; not perceiving that those 
great Fathers were only able to receive such nourishment 
because they were rooted on the rock of all ages, and that 
our scientific teaching, nowadays, is nothing more nor less 
than the assiduous watering of trees whose stems are cut 
through. ISTay, I have even granted too much in saying that 
those great men were able to receive pure nourishment from 
the sciences ; for my own conviction is, and I know it to be 
shared by most of those who love Raphael truly, — that he 



294 PEECIOTJS THOUGHTS. 

painted best when he knew least. Michael Angelo was 
betrayed again and again, into such vain and offensive exhi- 
bition of his anatomical knowledge as, to this day, renders 
his higher powers indiscernible by the greater part of men ; 
and Leonardo fretted his life away in engineering, so that 
there is hardly a picture left to bear his name. But, with 
respect to all who followed, there can be no question that the 
science they possessed was utterly harmful ; serving merely 
to draw away their hearts at once from the purposes of art 
and the power of nature, and to make, out of the canvass and 
marble, nothing more than materials for the exhibition of 
petty dexterity and useless knowledge. 

It is sometimes amusing to watch the naive and childish 
way in which this vanity is shown. For instance, when per- 
spective was first invented, the world thought it a mighty 
discovery, and the greatest men it had in it were as proud of 
knowing that retiring lines converge, as if all the wisdom of 
Solomon had been compressed into a vanishing point. And, 
accordingly, it became nearly impossible for any one to paint 
a Nativity, but he must turn the stable and manger into a 
Corinthian arcade, in order to show his knowledge of per- 
sj)ective ; and half the best architecture of the time, instead 
of being adorned with historical sculpture, as of old, was set 
forth with bas-relief of minor corridors and galleries, thrown 
into perspective. 

Now that perspective can be taught to any schoolboy in a 
week, we can smile at this vanity. But the fact is, that all 
pride in knowledge is precisely as ridiculous, whatever its 
kind, or whatever its degree. There is, indeed, nothing of 
which man has any right to be proud ; but the very last thing 
of which, with any show of reason, he can make his boast is 
his knowledge, except only that infinitely small portion of it 
which he has discovered for himself. For w^hat is there to be 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 9.95 

more proud of in receiving a piece of knowledge from another 
person than in receiving a piece of money ? Beggars should 
not be proud, whatever kind of alms they receive. Know- 
ledge is like current coin. A man may have some right to 
be proud of possessing it, if he has worked for the gold of it, 
and assayed it, and stamped it, so that it may be received of 
all men as true ; or earned it fairly, being already assayed : 
but if he has done none of these things, but only had it 
throu'n in his face by a passer-by, what cause has he to be 
proud ? And though, in this mendicant fashion, he had 
heaped together the wealth of Croesus, would pride any 
more, for this, become him, as, in some sort, it becomes the 
man who has laboured for his fortune, however small ? So, 
if a man tells me the sun is larger than the earth, have I any 
cause for pride in knowing it ? or, if any multitude of men 
tell me any number of things, heaping all their wealth of 
knowledge upon me, have I any reason to be proud under 
the heap ? And is not nearly all the knowledge of which we 
boast in these days cast upon us in this dishonourable way ; 
worked for by other men, proved by them, and then forced 
upon us, even against our wills, and beaten into us in our 
youtli, before we have the wit even to know if it be good or 
not ? (Mark the distinction between knowledge and thought.) 
Truly a noble possession to be proud of! Be assured, there 
is no part of the furniture of a man's mind which he has a 
right to exult in, but that which he has hewn and fashioned 
for himself He who has built himself a hut on a desert heath, 
and carved his bed, and table, and chair out of the nearest 
forest, may have some right to take pride in the appliances 
of his narrow chamber, as assuredly he will have joy in them. 
But the man who has had a palace built, and adorned, and 
furnished for liim, may, indeed, liave many ndvantagvs above 
the utlier, but he has no reason to be proud M' his upholster- 



296 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

er's skill ; and it is ten to one if he has half the joy in his 
couches of ivory that the other will have in his pallet of pine. 

And observe how we feel this, in the kind of respect we 
pay to such knowledge as we are indeed capable of estimat- 
ing the value of. When it is our own, and new to. us, we 
cannot judge of it ; but let it be anotlier's also, and long 
familiar to us, and see what value we set on it. Consider 
how we regard a sclioolboy, fresh from his term's labour. If 
he begin to display his newly acquired small knowledge to 
us, and plume himself thereupon, how soon do we silence him 
with contempt ! But it is not so if the schoolboy, begins to 
feel or see anything. In the strivings of his soul within him 
he is our equal ; in his power of sight and thought he stands 
separate from us, and may be a greater than we. We are 
ready to hear him forthwith. " You saw that ? you felt that ? 
No matter for your being a child ; let us hear." 

Consider that every generation of men stands in this rela- 
tion to its successors. It is as the schoolboy : the knowledge 
of which it is proudest will be as the alphabet to those who 
follow. It had better make no noise about its knowledge ; 
a time will come when its utmost, in that kind, will be food 
for scorn. Poor fools ! was that all they knew ? and behold 
how proud they were ! But what we see and feel wall never 
be mocked at. All men will be thankful to us for telling 
them that. " Indeed !" they will say, " they felt that in their 
day ? saw that ? Would God we may be like them, before 
we go to the home where sight and thought are not!" 



PKECIOUS THOUGUTS. 



297 



WHAT rsE r 

what use was that dearly bought water of the well of 
Betlitthem with which the King of Israel slaked tlie dust of 
Adulmni ? yet Avas not thus better than if he had drunk it ? 
Of ™at use was that passionate act of Christian sacrifice, 
againlt which, first uttered by the false tongue, the very 



objec 



on we would now conquer took a sullen tone for ever ? 



So a' let us not ask of what use our oflfering is to the 
chur( I : it is at least better for us than if it had been retained 
for o rselves. It may be better for others also : there is, at 
any i ,te, a chance of this ; though we must always fearfully 
and idely shun the thought that the magnificence of the 
tern J 3 can materially add to the efiiciency of the worship or 
to tl: power of the ministry. Whatever we do, or whatever 
we fcer, let it not interfere with the simplicity of the one, 
or auate, as if replacing, the zeal of the other. 



PAGAN DOUBTS. 

le Greeks never shrink from liorror ; down to its utter- 
m(»t depth, to its most appalling physical detail, they strive 
toEound the secrets of sorrow. For them there is no passing 
bwou the other side, no turning aw^ay the eyes to vanity 
►m pain. Literally, they have not " lifted up their souls 
ito vanity." Whether there be consolation for them or not, 
'ither apathy nor blindness shall be their saviours ; if, for 
rthem, thus knowing the facts of the grief of earth, any hope, 
relief, or triumph may hereafter seem possible, — well ; but if 
not, still hopeless, reliefless, eternal, the sorrow shall be met 
fa(ie to face. This Hector, so righteous, so merciful, so brave, 

13'^ 



* 



298 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

has, nevertheless, to look upon his dearest brother in miser- 
ablest death. His own soul passes away in hopeless sobs 
through the throat-wound of the Grecian spear. That is one 
aspect of things in this world, a fair world truly, but having, 
among its other aspects, this one, highly ambiguous. 

Meeting it boldly as they may, gazing right into the skele- 
ton face of it, the ambiguity remains ; nay, in some sort gains 
upon them. We trusted in the gods ; — we thought that wis- 
dom and courage would save us. Our wisdom and courage 
themselves deceive us to our death. Athena had the aspect 
of Deiphobus — terror of the enemy. She has not terrified 
him, but left us, in our mortal need. 

And, beyond that mortality, what hope have we ? Nothing 
is clear to us on that horizon, nor comforting. Funeral 
honours ; perhaps also rest ; perhaps a shadowy life —artless, 
joyless, loveless. IsTo devices in that darkness of the grave, 
nor daring, nor delight. Neither marrying nor giving in 
marriage, nor casting of spears, nor rolling of chariots, nor 
voice of fame. Lapped in pale Elysian mist, chilling the for- 
getful heart and feeble frame, shall we waste on for ever ? 
Can the dust of earth claim more of immortality than this ? 
Or shall we have even so much as rest ? May we, indeed, lie 
down ao-ain in the dust, or have our sins not hidden from us 
even the things that belong to that peace ? May not chance 
and the whirl of passion govern us there ; when there shall 
be no thought, nor work, nor wisdom, nor breathing of the 
soul ? 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 299 



PROPHETIC DREAMS. 



Now, SO fjir as the truth is seen by tlie imagination in its 
wholeness and quietness, the vision is sublime ; but so far as 
•it is narrowed and broken by the inconsistencies of tlie human 
capacity, it becomes grotesque : and it would seem to be rare 
that any very exalted truth should be impressed on the ima- 
gination without some grotesqueness in its aspect, propor- 
tioned to the degree of dbninutlon of breadth in the grasp 
which is given of it. Nearly all the dreams recorded in the 
Bible, — Jacob's, Joseph's, Pharaoh's, Nebuchadnezzar's, — are 
grotesques ; and nearly the whole of the accessary scenery in 
the books of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. Thus Jacob's 
dream revealed to him the ministry of angels ; but because 
this ministry could not be seen or understood by him in its 
fulness, it was narrowed to him into a ladder between heaven 
and earth, which was a grotesque. Joseph's two dreams 
were evidently intended to be signs of the steadfastness of 
the Divine purpose towards him, by possessing the clearness 
of special prophecy ; yet were couched in such imagery, as 
not to inform him prematurely of his destiny, and only to be 
understood after their fulfilment. The sun, and moon, and 
stai'S were at the period, and are indeed throughout the Bible, 
the symbols of high authority. It was not revealed to Joseph 
that he should be lord over all Egypt ; but the representation 
of his family by symbols of the most magnificent dominion, 
and yet as subject to him, must have been afterwards felt by 
liim as a distinctly prophetic indication of his own supreme 
power. It was not revealed to him that the occasion of his 
brethren's special humiliation before him should be their com- 
ing to buy corn ; but when the event took place, must he not 
have felt that there was prophetic purpose in the form of the 
sheaves of wheat which first imaged forth their subjection to 



300 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

him ? And these two images of the sun doing obeisance, and 
the sheaves bowing down, — narrowed and imperfect intima- 
tions of great truth which yet could not be otherwise con- 
A'eyed, — are both grotesques. The kine of Pharaoh eating 
each other, the gold and clay of Nebuchadnezzar's image, the 
four beasts full of eyes, and other imagery of Ezekiel and tlie 
Apocalypse, are grotesques of the same kind, on which I need 
not further insist. 



CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. 

As the heathen, in their alienation from God, changed His 
glory into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to 
birds, and four-footed beasts, the Christian, in his aj^proach 
to God, is to undo this work, and to change the corruptible 
things into the image of His glory ; believing that there is 
nothing so base in creation, but that our faith may give it 
wings which shall raise us into companionship with heaven ; 
and that, on the other hand, there is nothing so great or so 
goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol of the Gos- 
pel of Christ, and of the things He has prepared for them 
that love Him. 



THAlSrKFULlS^ESS. 

]^o man can indeed be a lover of what is best in the higher 
walks of art, who has not feeling and charity enough to 
rejoice with the rude sportiveness of hearts that have escaped 
out of prison, and to be thankful for the flowers which men 
have laid their burdens down to sow by the wayside. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 801 



STAND FAST, CEAIG ELLACHIE/ 



All the highest points of the Scottish character are con- 
nected Avith impressions derived straight from the natural 
scenery of their country. No nation has ever before shown, 
in the gjeneral tone of its lano-iuiffe — in the o-eneral current of 
its literature — so constant a habit of hallowing its passions 
and confirming its principles by direct association Avith tlie 
charm, or power, of nature. The writings of Scott and 
Burns — and yet more, of the far greater poets than Burns 
who gave Scotland her traditional ballads, — furnish you in 
every stanza— almost in every line — with examples of this 
association of natural scenery with the passions; but an 
instance of its farther connection with moral principle struck 
me forcibly just at the time when I was most lamenting the 
absence of art among tlie people. In one of the loneliest dis- 
tricts of Scotland, where the peat cottages are darkest, just 
at the western foot of that great mass of the Grampians 
which encircles the sources of the Spey and the Dee, the main 
road which traverses the chain winds round the foot of a 
broken rock called Crag, or Craig Ellachie. There is nothing 
remarkable in either its height or form; it is darkened with 
a few scattered pines, and touched along its summit witli a 
flush of heather ; but it constitutes a kind of headland, or 
leading promontory, in the group of hills to which it belongs 
— a sort of initial letter of the mountains ; and thus stands in 
the mind of the inhabitants of the district, the Clan Grant, 
for a type of their country, and of the influence of that coun- 
try upon themselves. Their sense of this is beautifully indi- 
cated in the war-cry of the clan, " Stand fast, Craig Ellachie." 
You may think long over those few words without exhaust- 
ing the deep wells of feeling and thought contained in them 
— the love of the native land, the assurance of their faithful- 



302 PEECIOUS THOrrGHTS. 

ness to it ; the subdued and gentle assertion of indomitable 
courage — I may need to be told to stand, but, if I do, Craig 
EUachie does. You could not but have felt, had you passed 
beneath it at the time when so many of England's dearest 
children were being defended by the strength of heart of 
men born at its foot, how often among the delicate Indian 
palaces, whose marble was pallid with horror, and whose 
vermilion was darkened with blood, the remembrance of its 
rough grey rocks and pnrple heaths must have risen before 
the sight of the Highland soldier; how often the hailing of 
the shot and the shriek of battle would pass away from his 
hearing, and leave only the whisper of the old pine branches, 
— " Stand fast, Craig EUachie !"* 



CAEE FOR TRIFLES. 

In mortals, there is a care for trifles which proceeds from 
love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles 
which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And 
so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is 
most noble ; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere 
incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. 



DUEER AND SALVATOR. 



The reader might see at a glance the elements of the 
^N'uremberg country, as they still exist. Wooden cottages, 
thickly grouped, enormously high in the roofs ; the sharp 

* Is Bot this the "war-cry" of our own Grant? — L. C. T. 



PEECIOTTS THOUGHTS. 303 

clmrcli spire, small and slightly grotesque, surmounting them ; 
beyond, a richly cultivated, healthy plain bounded by woody 
l]ills. By a strange coincidence the very plant which consti- 
tutes the staple jDroduce of those fields, is in almost ludicrous 
harmony with the grotesqueness and neatness of the architec- 
ture around ; and one may almost fancy that the builders of 
the little knotted spires and turrets of the town, and workers 
of its dark iron flowers, are in spiritual presence, watching 
and guiding the produce of the field, — when one finds the 
footpaths bordered everywhere, by the bossy spires and lus- 
trous jetty flowers of the black hollyhock. 

Lastly, when Durer penetrated among those hills of Fran- 
conia he would find himself in a pastoral country, much 
resembling the Gruyere districts of Switzerland, but less 
thickly inhabited, and giving in its steep, though not lofty, 
rocks, — its scattered pines, — and its fortresses and chapels, 
the motives of all the wilder landscape introduced by the 
painter in such pieces as his St. Jerome, or St. Hubert. His 
continual and forced introduction of sea in almost every scene, 
much as it seems to me to be regretted, is possibly owing to 
his happy recollections of the sea-city where he received the 
rarest of all rewards granted to a good workman ; and for 
once in his life was understood. 

Among this pastoral simplicity and formal sweetness of 
domestic peace, Durer had to work out his question concern- 
ing the grave. It haunted him long; he learned to engrave 
death's heads well before he had done wdth it ; looked deeper 
than any other man into those strange rings, their jewels lost ; 
and gave answer at last conclusively in his great Knight and 
Death — of Avhich more presently. But while the Nuremberg 
landscape is still fresh in our minds, we had better turn south 
quickly and compare the elements of education which formed, 
and of creation which companioned, Salvator. 



304 PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Born with a wild and coarse nature (how coarse I will show 
you soon), but nevertheless an honest one, he set himself in 
youth hotly to the war, and cast himself carelessly on the 
current, of life. No rectitude of ledger-lines stood in his 
way; no tender precision of household customs ; no calm suc- 
cessions of rural labour. But past his half-starved lips rolled 
profusion of pitiless wealth ; before him glared and swept the 
troops of shameless pleasure. Above him muttered Vesu- 
vius ; beneath his feet shook the Solfatara. 

In heart disdainful, in temper adventurous ; conscious of 
power, impatient of labour, and yet more of the pride of the 
patrons of his youth, he fled to the Calabrian hills, seeking not 
knowledge, but freedom. If he was to be surrounded by 
cruelty and deceit, let them at least be those of brave mea or 
savage beasts, not of the timorous and the contemptible. 
Better the wrath of the robber, than the enmity of the priest; 
and the cunning of the v\'olf than of the hypocrite. 

We are accustomed to hear the south of Italy spoken of as 
a- beautiful country. Its mountain forms are graceful above 
others, its sea bays exquisite in outhne and hue ; but it is only 
beautiful in superficial asi)ect. In closer detail it is wild and' 
melancholy. Its forests are sombre-leafed, labyrinth-stemmed ; 
the carubbe, the olive, laurel, and ilex, are alike in that 
strange feverish twisting of their branches, as if in spasms of 
half human pain : — Avernus forests : one fears to break their 
boughs, lest they should cry to us from their rents ; the rocks 
they shade are of ashes, or thrice-molten lava ; iron sponge, 
whose every pore has been filled wnth fire. Silent villages, 
earthquake-shaken, without commerce, without industry, with- 
out knowledge, without hope, gleam in white ruiu from hill- 
side to hillside ; far-winding wa-ecks of immemorial walls sur- 
round the dust of cities long forsaken : the mountain streams 
moan through the cold arches of their foundations, green with 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 305 

weed, and rage over the heaps of their fallen towers. Far 
above in thunder-blue serration, stand the eternal edges of the 
angry Apennine, dark with rolling impendence of volcanic 
cloud. 

Yet even among such scenes as those, Salvator might have 
been calmed and exalted, had he been, indeed, capable of exal- 
tation. But he was not of high temper enough to perceive 
beauty. He had not the sacred sense — the sense of colour ; 
all the loveliest hues of the Calabrian air were invisible to hiui ; 
the sorrowful desolation of the Calabrian villages unfelt. He 
saw only what was gross and terrible, — the jagged peak, the 
splintered tree, the flowerless bank of grass, and wandering 
weed, prickly and pale. His temper confirmed itself in evil, 
and became more and more fierce and morose ; though not, I 
believe, cruel, ungenerous, or lascivious. I should not sus- 
pect Salvator of wantonly inflicting pain. His constantly 
painting it does not prove he delighted in it ; he felt the hor- 
ror of it, and in that horror fascination. Also he desired 
fame, and saw that here was an untried field rich enough in 
morbid excitement to catch the humour of his indolent patrons. 
But the gloom gained upon him, and grasped him. He 
could jest, indeed, as men jest in prison-yards (he became af- 
terwards a renowned mime in Florence) ; his satires are full of 
good mocking, but his own doom to sadness is never repealed. 

Of all men whose Avork I have ever studied, he gives me 
most distinctly the idea of a lost spirit. Michelet calls him " Ce 
damne Salvator," perhaps in a sense merely harsh and vio- 
lent; the epithet to me seems true in a more literal, more 
merciful sense, — " That condemned Salvator." I see in him, 
notwithstanding all his baseness, the last traces of spiritual 
life in the art of Europe. He was the last man to whom the 
thought of a spiritual existence presented itself as a conceiva- 
ble reality. All succeeding men, however powerful — Rem- 



306 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

braiult, Rubens, Yandyck, Reynolds — would have mocked at 
the idea of a spirit. They were men of the world ; they are 
never in earnest, and they are never apj^alled. But Salvator 
was capable of pensiveness, of faith, and of fear. The misery 
of the earth is a marvel to him ; he cannot leave off gazing at 
it. The religion of the earth is a horror to him. He gnashes 
his teeth at it, rages at it, mocks and gibes at it. He would 
have acknowledged religion, had he seen any that was true. 
Anything rather than that baseness which he did see. " If 
there is no other religion than this of pope and cardinals, let 
us to the robber's ambush and the dragon's den." He was 
capable of fear also. The grey spectre, horse-headed, striding 
across the sky — (in the Pitti palace) — ^its bat wings spread, 
green bars of the twilight seen between its bones; it was no 
play to him — the painting of it. Helpless Salvator ! A little 
early sympathy, a word of true guidance, perhaps, had saved 
him. What says he of himself? Despiser of wealth and of 
death. Two grand scorns ; but, oh, condemned Salvator ! the 
question is not for man what he can scorn, but what he can 
love. 

I do not care to trace the various hold which Hades takes 
on this fallen soul. It is no part of my work here to analyze 
his art, nor even that of Durer; all that we need to note is 
the opposite answer they gave to the question about death. 

To Salvator it came in narrow terms. Desolation, without 
hope, throughout the fields of nature, he had to explore ; 
hypocrisy and sensuality, triumphant, and shameless, in the 
cities from which he derived his support. His life, so far as 
any nobility remained in it, could only pass in horror, disdain, 
or despair. It is difficult to say which of the three prevails 
most in his common work ; but his answer to the great ques- 
tion was of despair only. He represents " Umana Fragilita" 
by the type of a skeleton with plumy wings, leaning over a 



PBECIOUS THOUGnTS. 307 

woman and child ; tlie earth covered with ruin round them 
— a thistle, casting its seed, the only fruit of it. " Thorns, 
also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." The same tone 
of thought marks all Salvator's more earnest work. 

On the contrary, in the sight of Durer, things were for the 
most part as they ought to be. Men did their work in his 
city and in the fields round it. The clergy were sincere. 
Great social questions unagitated ; great social evils either 
non-existent, or seemingly a part of the nature of things, and 
inevitable. His answer was that of patient hope ; and two- 
fold, consisting of one design in praise of Fortitude, and 
another in praise of Labour. The Fortitude, commonly 
know^n as the " Knight and Death," represents a knight rid- 
ing through a dark valley overhung by leafless trees, and with 
a great castle on a hill beyond. Beside him, but a little in 
advance, rides Death on a pale horse Death is gray-haired 
and crowned; — serpents wreathed about his crown (the 
sting of death involved in the kingly power). He holds up 
the hour-glass, and looks earnestly into the knight's face. 
Behind him follows Sin ; but Sin powerless ; he has been 
conquered and passed by, but follows yet, watching if any 
way of assault remains. On his forehead are two horns — I 
think, of sea-shell — to indicate his insatiable aess and insta- 
bility. He has also the twisted horns of the ram, for stub- 
bornness, the ears of an ass, the snout of a SAvine, the hoofs 
of a goat. Torn wings hang useless from his shoulders, and 
he carries a spear with two hooks, for catching as well as 
wounding. The knight does not heed him, nor even Death, 
though he is conscious of the presence of the last. 

He rides quietly, his bridle firm in his hand, and his lips 
set close in a slight sorrowful smile, for he hears what Death 
is saying ; and hears it as the word of a messenger who 
bj'ings pleasant tidings, thinking to bring evil ones. A little 



308 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

branch of delicate heath is twisted round his helmet. His 
horse trots proudly and straight; its head high, and with a 
cluster of oak on the brow where on the fiend's brow is the 
sea-shell horn. But. the horse of Death stoops its head ; and 
its rein catches the little bell which hangs from the knight's 
horse-bridle, making it toll, as a passing bell.* 

Durer's second, answer is the plate of " Melencholia," which 
is the history of the sorrowful toil of the earth, as the 
" Knight and Death " is of its sorrowful patience under 
temptation. 

Salvator's answer, remember, is in both respects that of 
despair. Death as he reads, lord of temptation, is victor 
over the spirit of man ; and lord of ruin, is victor over the 
work of man. Durer declares the sad, but unsullied conquest 
over Death the tempter ; and the sad, but enduring conquest 
over Death the destroyer. 

Though the general intent of the Melencholia is clear, and 
to be felt at a glance, I am in some doubt respecting its spe- 
cial symbolism. I do not know how far Durer intended to 
show that labour, in many of its most earnest forms, is closely 
connected with the morbid sadness or " dark anger," of the 
northern nations^ Truly some of the best work ever done for 
man, has been in that dark anger ;f but I have not yet been 

* This was first pointed oat to me by a friend — Mr. Robert Allen. It is 
a beautiful thought ; yet, possibly, ait after-thought. I have some suspi- 
cion that there is an alteration in the plate at that place, and that the rope 
to which the bell hangs was originally the line of the chest of the nearest 
horse, as the grass-blades about the lifted hind leg conceal the lines which 
could not, in Durer's way of work, be effaced, indicating its first intended 
position. "What a proof of his general decision of handling is involved in 
this " repentirl " 

f " Yet withal, you see that the Monarch is a great, valiant, cautious, 
melancholy, commanding man." — Friends in Council, last volume, p. 269; 
Milverton giving an account of Titian's picture of Charles the Fifth. (Com- 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 309 

able to determine for myself how far this is necessary, or how 
for great work may also be done with cheerfulness. If I 
knew what the truth was, I should be able to interpret Durer 
better ; meantime the design seems to me his answer to the 
complaint, " Yet is his strength labour and sorrow." 

" Yes," he replies, " but labour and sorrow are his 
strength." 

The labour indicated is in the daily work of men. Not the 
inspired or gifted labour of the few (it is labour connected 
with the sciences, not with the arts), shown in its four chief 
functions : thoughtful, faithful, calculating and executing. 

Thoughtful, first ; all true power coming of that resolved, 
resistless calm of melancholy thought. This is the first and 
last message of the whole design. Faithful, the right arm of 
the spirit resting on the book. Calculating (chiefly in the 
sense of self-command), the compasses in her right hand. 
Executive — roughest instruments of labour at her feet : a cru- 
cible, and geometrical S(>lids, indicating her work in the 
sciences. Over her head tiie hour-glass and the bell, for their 
continual words, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do." 
Beside her, childish labour (lesson-learning ?) sitting on an 
old millstone, with a tablet on its knees. I do not know what 
instrument it has in its hand. At her knees, a wolf-hound 
asleep. In the distance, a comet (the disorder and threaten- 
ing of the universe) setting, the rainbow dominant over it. 
Her strong body is close girded for work ; at her wi)ist hang 
the keys of wealth ; but the coin is cast aside contemptuously 
under her feet. She has eagles' wings, and is crowned with 
fair leafage of spring. 

Yes, Albert of Xuremberg, it was a noble answer, yet an 

pare EUesmere's description of Milvcrton himself, p. 140.) Read carefully 
also what is said further on respecting Titian's freedom, and fearless with- 
holding of flattery; comi)aTing it Avith tlie note on Giorgionc and Titian. 



310 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

imi^erfect one. This is indeed the labour which is crowned 
with laurel and has the wings of an eagle. It was reserved 
for another country to prove, for another hand to portray, 
the labour which is crowned with fire, and has the wings of 
the bat. 



CAEE FOR rOSTERITY. 

The benevolent regards and purposes of men in masses sel- 
dom can be supposed to extend beyond their own generation. 
They may look to posterity as an audience, may hope for its 
attention, and labour for its praise: they may trust to its 
recognition of unacknowledged merit, and demand its justice 
for contemporary wrong. But all this is mere selfishness, and 
does not involve the slightest regard to, or consideration of, 
the interests of those by whose numbers we would fain swell 
the circle of om' flatterers, and by whose authority we would 
gladly support our presently disputed claims. The idea of 
self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practising present 
economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting 
forests that our descendants may live under their shade, or of 
raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, 
efficiently takes place among publicly recognised motives of 
exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties ; nor is our 
part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our 
intended and deliberate usefulness include not only the com- 
panions, but the successors, of our pilgrimage. God has lent 
us the earth for our life ; it is a great entail. It belongs as 
much to those who are to come after us, and whose names 
are already written in the book of creation, as to us ; and we 
have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve 



PEECIOUS THOUGHTS. 311 

them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits 
which it was in oin- power to bequeath. And this the more, 
because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of 
men that, in j^roportion to the time between the seed-sowing 
and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit ; and that gene- 
rally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less 
we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have 
laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of 
om* success. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as 
they can benefit those w^ho come after them ; and of all the 
pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is 
none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. 



GLOOM. 

It is not in the languor of a leisure hour that a man \vill 
set his whole soul to conceive the means of representing some 
important truth, nor to the projecting angle of a timber 
bracket that he would trust its representation, if conceived. 
And yet, in this languor, and in this trivial work, he must 
find some expression of the serious part of his soul, of what 
there is within him capable of awe, as well as of love. The 
more noble the man is, the more impossible it will be for him 
to confine his thoughts to mere loveliness, and that of a low 
order. Were his powers and his time unlimited, so that, like 
Fra Angelico, he could paint the Seraphim, in that order of 
beauty he could find contentment, bringing down heaven to 
earth. But by the conditions of his being, by his hard-worked 
life, by his feeble powers of execution, by the meanness of his 
employment and the languor of his heart, he is bound dowm 
to earth. It is the world's work that he is doing, and world's 



?.12 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

work is not to be done without fear. And whatever there is 
of deep and eternal conscionsness within him, thrilling his 
mind with the sense of the presence of sin and death around 
him, must be expressed in that slight work, and feeble way, 
come of it what will. He cannot forget it, among all that he 
sees of beautiful in nature ; he may not bury himself among 
the leaves of the violet on the rocks, and of the lily in the 
glen, and twine out of them garlands of perpetual gladness. 
He sees more in the earth than these, — misery and wrath^ 
and discordance and danger, and all the work of the dragon 
and his angels; this he sees with too -deep feeling ever to for- 
get. And though when he returns to his idle work, — it may 
be to gild the letters upon the page, or to carve the timbers 
of the chamber, or the stones of the pinnacle, — he cannot 
give his strength of thought any more to the woe or to the 
dangei', there is a shadow of them still present with him: and 
as the bright colours mingle beneath his touch, and the fair 
leaves and flowers grow at his bidding, strange horroi-s and 
phantasms rise by their side; grisly beasts and venomous 
serpents, and spectral fiends and nameless inconsistencies of 
ghastly life, rising out of things most beautiful, and fading 
back into them again, as the harm and the horror of life do 
out of its happiness. He has seen these things ; he Avars with 
them daily ; he cannot but give them their part in his work, 
though in a state of comparative apathy to them at the time. 
He is but carving and gilding, and must not turn aside to 
weep ; but he knows that hell is burning on, for all that, and 
the smoke of it withers his oak-leaves. 

Now, the feelings which give rise to the false or ignoble 
grotesque, are exactly the reverse of these. In the true 
grotesque, a man of naturally strong feeling is accidentally or 
resolutely apathetic ; in the false grotesque, a man naturally 
apathetic is forcing himself into temporary excitement. The 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 313 

horror which is expressed by the one, comes upon him whe- 
ther he will or not ; that which is expressed by the other, is 
sought out by him, and elaborated by his art. And there- 
fore, also, because the fear of the one is true, and of true 
things, however fantastic its expression may be, there will be 
reality in it, and force. It is not a manufactured terribleness, 
whose author, when he had finished it, knew not if it would 
terrify any one else or not : but it is a terribleness taken 
from the life; a spectre which tlie workman indeed saw, and 
which, as it appalled him, Avill appal us also. But the other 
workman never felt any Divine fear ; he never shuddered 
when he heard the cry from the burning towers of the earth, 

" Yenga Medusa; si lo farem di smalto." 

He is stone already, and needs no gentle hand laid upon his 
eyes to save him. 



NOTHIlSrG BUT TRUTH. 

Let me declare, without qualification — that partial concep- 
tion is no conception. The whole jDicture must be imagined, 
or none of it is. And this grasp of the whole implies very 
strange and sublime qualities of mind. It is not possible, 
unless the feelings are completely under control ; the least 
excitement or passion will disturb the measured equity of 
power ; a painter needs to be as cool as a general ; and as 
little moved or subdued by his sense of pleasure, as a soldier 
by the sense of pain. Nothing good can be done without 
intense feeling ; but it must be feeling so crushed, that the 
work is set about with mechanical steadiness, absolutely 
untroubled, as a surgeon, — not without pity, but conquering 

14 



314 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

it and putting it aside — begins an operation. Until the feel- 
ings can give strength enough to the will to enable it to con- 
quer them, they are not strong enough. If you cannot leave 
your picture at any moment ; — cannot turn from it and go on 
with another, while the colour is drying; — cannot work at any 
part of it you choose with equal contentment — you have not 
firm enough grasp of it. 

It follows also, that no vain or selfish person can j^ossibly 
paint, in the noble sense of the word. Vanity and selfish- 
ness are troublous, eager, anxious, petulant: — painting can 
only be done in calm of mind. Resolution is not enough to 
secure this ; it must be secured by disposition as well. You 
may resolve to think of your picture only ; but, if you have 
been fretted before beginning, no manly or clear grasp of it 
will be possible for you. No forced calm is calm enough. 
Only honest calm, — ^natural calm. You might as well try by 
external pressure to smoothe a lake till it could reflect the 
sky, as by violence of efiTort to secure the peace through 
which only you can reach imagination. That peace must 
come in its own time ; as the waters settle themselves into 
clearness as well as quietness ; you can no more filter your 
mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness; you 
must keep it pure, if you would have it pure ; and throw no 
stones into it, if you would have it quiet. Great courage and 
self-command may, to a certain extent, give power of paint- 
ing without the true calmness underneath ; but never of do- 
ing first-rate work. There is sufiicient evidence of this, in 
even what we know of great men, though of the greatest, we 
nearly always know the least (and that necessarily ; they 
being very silent, and not much given to setting themselves 
forth to questioners ; apt to be contemptuously reserved, no 
less than unselfishly). But in such writings and sayings as we 
possess of theirs, we may trace a quite curious gentleness and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 315 

serene courtesy. Rubens' letters are almost ludicrous in their 
unhurried politeness. Reynolds, swiftest of painters, was 
gentlest of companions ; so also Yelasquez, Titian, and Vero- 
nese. 

It is gratuitous to add that no shallow or petty person can 
jDaint. Mere cleverness or special gift never made an artist. 
It is only perfectness of mind, unity, depth, decision, the 
highest qualities, in fine, of the mtellect, which will form the 
imagination. 

And, lastly, no false person can paint. A person false at 
heart may, when it suits his purposes, seize a stray truth here 
or there ; bnt the relations of truth, — its perfectness, — that 
which makes it wholesome truth, he can never perceive. As 
wholeness and wholesomeness go together, so also sight with 
sincerity ; it is only the constant desire of, and submissiveness 
to truth, which can measure its strange angles and mark its 
infinite aspects ; and fit them and knit them into the strength 
of sacred invention. 

Sacred, I call it deliberately; for it is thus, in the most 
accurate senses, humble as well as helpful ; meek in its receiv- 
ing as magnificent in its disposing; the name it bears being 
rightly given to invention formal, not because it forms, but 
because it finds. For you cannot find a lie; you must make 
it for yourself. False things may be imagined, and false 
things composed ; but only truth can be invented. 



INFIDELITY. 



It is written, " He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool," 
so also it is written, "The fool hath said in his heart. There 
is no God ;" and the self-adulation which influenced not less 



316 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

the learning of the age than its luxury, led gradually to the 
forgetfulness of all things but self, and to an infidelity only 
the more fatal because it still retained the form and language 
of faith. 

In noticing the more prominent forms in which this faith- 
lessness manifested itself, it is necessary to distinguish justly 
between that which was the consequence of respect for 
Paganism, and that which followed from the corruption of 
Catholicism. For as the Roman architecture is not to be 
made answerable for the primal corruption of the Gothic, so 
neither is the Roman philosophy to be made answerable for 
the primal corruption of Christianity. Year after year, as 
the history of the life of Christ sank back into the depth of 
time, and became obscured by the misty atmosphere of the 
history of the world, — as intermediate actions and incidents 
multiplied in number, and countless changes in men's modes 
of life, and tones of thought, rendered it more difiicult for 
them to imagine the facts of distant time, — it became daily, 
almost hourly, a greater effort for the faithful heart to appre- 
hend the entire veracity and vitality of the story of its 
Redeemer ; and more easy for the thoughtless and remiss to 
deceive themselves as to the true, character of the belief they 
had been taught to profess. And this must have been the 
case, had the pastors of the Church never failed in their 
watchfulness, and the Church itself never erred in its practice 
or doctrine. But when every year that removed the truths 
of the Gospel into deeper distance, added to them also some 
false or foolish tradition ; when wilful distortion was added 
to natural obscurity, and the dimness of memory was dis- 
guised by the fruitfulness of fiction ; when, moreover, the 
enormous temporal power granted to the clergy attracted 
into their ranks multitudes of men who, but for such temp- 
tation, would not have pretended to the Christian name, so 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. ^^'^ 



that grievous wolves entered in among them, not sparing the 
flock; and when, by the machinations of such men, and the 
remissness of others, the form and administration of Church 
doctrine and discipline had become little more than a means 
of aggrandizing the power of the priesthood, it was impos- 
sible^'any longer for men of thoughtfulness or piety to remam 
in an unquestioning serenity of faith. The Church had 
become so mingled with the world that its witness could no 
longer be received; and the professing members of it, who 
were placed in circumstances such as to enable them to 
become aware of its corruptions, and whom their interest or 
their simphcity did not bribe or beguile into silence, gradu- 
ally separated themselves into two vast multitudes of adverse 
energy, one tending to Reformation, and the other to Infi- 

dehty. 

Of these, the last stood, as it were, apart, to watch the 
course of the struggle between Romanism and Protestant- 
ism, a struggle which, however necessary, was attended with 
infinite calamity to the Church. For, in the first place, the 
Protestant movement was, in reality, not reformation but 
vecmimation. It poured new life into the Church, but it did 
not form or define her anew. In some sort it rather broke 
down her hedges, so that all they who passed by might pluck 
off her grapes. The reformers speedily found that the enemy 
was never far behind the sower of good seed ; that an evil 
spirit mio-ht enter the ranks of reformation as well as those 
of resistance ; and that though the deadly blight might be 
checked amidst the wheat, there was no hope of ever rid- 
din- the wheat itself from the tares. New temptations were 
invented by Satan wherewith to oppose the revived strength 
of Christianity: as the Romanist, confiding in his human 
teachers, had ceased to try whether they were teachers sent 
from God, so the Protestant, confiding in the teachmg of the 



318 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Spirit, believed every spirit, and did not try the spirit 
whether they were of God. And a thousand enthusiasms 
and heresies speedily obscured the faith and divided the force 
of the Reformation. 

But the main evils rose out of the antagonism of the two 
great parties ; primarily, in the mere fact of the existence of 
an antagonism. To the eyes of the unbeliever the Church 
of Christ, for the first time since its foundation, bore the 
aspect of a house divided against itself. Not that many 
forms of schism had not before arisen in it ; but either they 
had been obscure and silent, hidden among the shadows of 
the Alps and the marshes of the Rhine ; or they had been 
outbreaks of visible and unmistakeable error, cast off by the 
Church, rootless, and speedily Avithering away, while, with 
much that was erring and criminal, she still retained within 
her the pillar and ground of the truth. But here was at last 
a schism in which truth and authority were at issue. The 
body that was cast off withered away no longer. It stretched 
out its boughs to the sea and its branches to the river, and it 
was the ancient trunk that gave signs of decrejDitude. On 
one side stood the reanimated faith, in its right hand the 
book open, and its loft hand lifted up to heaven, appealing for 
its proof to the Word of the Testimony and the power of 
the Holy Ghost. On the other stood, or seemed to stand, all 
beloved custom and believed tradition ; all that for fifteen 
hundred years had been closest to the hearts of men, or 
most precious for their help. Long-trusted legend ; long- 
reverenced power ; long-practised discipline ; faiths that had 
ruled the destiny, and sealed the departure, of souls that 
could not be told or nuujbered for multitude ; prayers, that 
from the lips of the fathers to those of the children had dis- 
tilled like sweet waterfalls, sounding through the silence of 
ages, breaking themselves into heavenly dew to return upon 



PRKCIOUS THOUGHTS. 319 

the pastures of the wilderness ; hopes, that had set the face 
as a flint in the torture, and the sword as a flame in the bat- 
tle, that had pointed the purposes and ministered the 
strength of life, brightened the last glances and shaped the 
hist syllables of death ; charities, that had bound together 
the brotherhoods of the mountain and the desert, and had 
woven chains of pitying or aspiring communion between this 
world and the unfithomable beneath and above ; and, more 
than these, the sj)irits of all the innumerable, undoubting, 
dead, beckoning to the one way by w^hich they had been 
content to follow the things that belonged unto their peace ; 
— these all stood on the other side: and the choice must 
have been a bitter one, even at the best ; but it was rendered 
tenfold more bitter by the natural, but most sinful animosity 
of the two divisions of the Church against each other. 

On one side this animosity was, of course, inevitable. The 
Romanist party, though still including many Christian men, 
necessarily included, also, all the worst of those who called 
themselves Christians. In the fact of its refusing correction, 
it stood confessed as the Church of the unholy ; and, while it 
still counted among its adherents many of the simple and 
believing, — men unacquainted with the corruption of the 
body to which they belonged, or incapable of accepting any 
form of doctrine but that which they had been taught from 
their youth, — it gathered together wnth them whatever was 
carnal and sensual in priesthood or in j^eople, all the lovers 
of power in the one, and of ease in the other. And the rage 
of these men was, of course, unlimited against those who 
eithei' disputed their authority, reprehended their manner of 
life, or cast suspicion upon the popular methods of lulling the 
conscience in the lifetime, or purchasing salvation on the 
death-bed. 

Besides this, the reassertion and defence of various tenets 



320 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Avhich before had been little more than floating errors in the 
popular mind, but which, definitely attacked by Protestant- 
ism, it became necessary to fasten down with a band of iron 
and brass, gave a form at once more rigid, and less rational, 
to the whole body of Romanist Divinity. Multitudes of 
minds which in other ages might have brought lionour and 
strength to the Church, preaching the more vital truths 
which it still retained, were now occupied in pleading for 
arraigned falsehoods, or magnifying disused frivolities : and 
it can hardly be doubted by any candid observer, that the 
nascent or latent errors which God pardoned in times of 
ignorance, became unpardonable when they were formally 
defined and defended ; that fallacies which were forgiven to 
the enthusiasm of a multitude, were avenged upon the stub- 
bornness of a Council ; that, above all, the great invention of 
the age, which rendered God's word accessible to every man, 
left all sins against its light incapable of excuse or expiation ; 
and that from the moment when Rome set herself in direct 
opposition to the Bible, the judgment was pronounced upon 
her, which made her the scorn and the prey of her own chil- 
dren, and cast her down from the throne where she had mag- 
nified herself against heaven, so low, that at last the unima- 
ginable scene of the Bethlehem humiliation was mocked in 
the temples of Christianity. Judea had seen her God laid in 
the manger of the beast of burden ; it was for Christendom 
to stable the beast of burden by the altar of her God. 

Nor, on the other hand, was the opposition of Protestant- 
ism to the Papacy less injurious to itself. That opposition 
was, for the most part, intemperate, undistinguishing, and 
incautious. It could indeed hardly be otherwise. Fresh 
bleeding from the sword of Rome, and still trembling at her 
anathema, the reformed churches were little likely to remem- 
ber any of her benefits, or to regard any of her teaching. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 321 

Forced by the Romanist contumely into habits of ir)-everence, 
by the Romanist fallacies into habits of disbelief, the self- 
trusting, rashly-reasoning spirit gained ground among them 
daily. Sect branched out of sect, presumption rose over pre- 
sumption ; the miracles of the early Church were denied and 
its martyrs forgotten, though their power and palm were 
claimed by the members of every persecuted sect; pri<le, 
malice, wrath, love of change, masked themselves under the 
thirst for truth, and mingled with the just resentment of de- 
ception, so that it became impossible even for the best and 
truest men to know the plague of their own hearts ; while 
avarice and impiety openly transformed reformation uito rob- 
bery, and reproof into sacrilege. Ignorance could as easily 
lead the foes of th(^ Church, as lull her slumber ; men who 
would once have been the unquestioning recipients, were 
now the shameless inventors of absurd or perilous supersti- 
tions ; they who w^ere of the temper that walketh in darkness, 
gained little by having discovered their guides to be blind ; 
and the simplicity of the faith, ill understood and contuma- 
ciously alleged, became an excuse for the rejection of the 
hio-hest arts and most tried v,isdom of mankind : wdiile the 
learned infidel, standing aloof, drew his own conclusions, both 
from the rancour of the :nt agonists, and from their errors ; 
beheved each in all that he alleged against the other ; and 
smiled with superior humanity, as he watched the winds of 
the Alps drift the ashes of Jerome, and the dust of England 
drink the blood of King Charles. 

Now all this evil was, of course, entirely independent of the 
renewal of the study of Pagan writers. But that renewal 
found the faith of Christendom already weakened and divided ; 
and therefore it was itself productive of an effect tenfold 
greater than could have been apprehended from it at another 
time. It acted first, as betbi-e noticed, in leading the atten- 

14* 



322 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 

tion of all men to words instead of things ; for it was dis- 
covered that the language of the middle ages had been cor- 
rupt, and the primal object of every scholar became now to 
puiify his style. To this study of words, that of forms being 
added, both as of matters of the first importance, half the in- 
tellect of the age was at once absorbed in the base sciences 
of grammar, logic, and rhetoric ; studies utterly unworthy 
of the serious labour of men, and necessarily rendering those 
employed upon them incapable of high thoughts or noble 
emotions. Of the debasing tendency of philology, no proof 
is needed beyond once reading a grammarian's notes on a 
great poet : logic is unnecessary for men who can reason ; and 
about as useful to those w^ho cannot, as a machine for forcing 
one foot in due succession before the other w^ould be to a man 
w^ho could not Avalk : while the study of rhetoric is exclu- 
sively one for men who desire to deceive or be deceived ; he 
who has the truth at his heart need never fear the want of 
persuasion on his tongue, or, if he fear it, it is because the 
base rhetoric of dishonesty keeps the truth from being heard. 

The study of these sciences, therefore, naturally made men 
shallow and dishonest in general ; but it had a peculiarly 
fatal effect with respect to religion, in the view which men 
took of the Bible. Christ's teaching was discovered not to 
be rhetorical, St. Paul's preaching not to be logical, and the 
Greek of the New Testament not to be grammatical. The 
stern truth, the profound pathos, the impatient period, leap- 
ing from point to point and leaving the intervals for the hearer 
to fill, the comparatively Hebraized and unelaborate idiom, 
had little in them of attraction for the students of phrase and 
syllogism : and the chief knowledge of the age became one 
of the chief stumbling-blocks to its religion. 

But it was not the grammarian and logician alone who was 
thus retarded or perverted ; in them there had been small 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 323 

loss. The men who could truly appreciate the higher excel- 
lencies of the classics Avere carried away by a current of 
enthusiasm which withdrew them from every other study. 
Christianity was still professed as a matter of form, but nei- 
ther the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers had time left 
for their perusal, still less heart left for their acceptance. 
The human mind is not capable of more than a certain amount 
of admb'ation or reverence, and that which Avas given to 
Horace was withdrawn from David. Religion is, of all sub- 
jects, that which will least endure a second place in the heart 
or thoughts, and a languid and occasional study of it was sure 
to lead to error or infidelity. On the other hand, what was 
heartily admired and unceasingly contemplated was soon 
brought nigh to being believed ; and the systems of Pagan 
mythology began gradually to assume the places in the human 
mind from which the unwatched Christianity was wasting. 
Men did not indeed openly sacrifice to Jupiter, or build silver 
shrines for Diana, but the ideas of Paganism nevertheless 
became thoroughly vital and present with them at all times ; 
and it did not matter in the least, as far as respected the 
power of true religion, whether the Pagan image was believed 
in or not, so long as it entirely occupied the thoughts. The 
scholar of the sixteenth century, if he saw the lightning shin- 
ing from the east unto the west, thought forthwith of Jupi- 
ter, not of the coming of the Son of Man ; if he saw the moon 
walking in brightness, he thought of Diana, not of the throne 
which was to be established for ever as a faithful witness in 
heaven ; and though his heart was but secretly enticed, yet 
thus he denied the God that is above.* 

And, indeed, this double creed, of Christianity confessed 
and Paganism beloved, was worse than Paganism itself, inas- 

* Job, xxxl 26 — 28 ; Psalm bcxxix. 37. 



324 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

much as it refused eflfective aud practical belief altogether. 
It would have been better to have worshipped Diana and 
Jupiter at once, than to have gone on through the whole of 
life naming one God, imagining another, and dreading none. 
Better, a thousandfold, to have been " a Pagan suckled in 
some creed outworn," than to have stood by the great sea of 
Eternity, and seen no God walking on its w-aves, no heavenly 
world on its horizon. 

This fatal result of an enthusiasm for classical literature 
was hastened and heightened by the misdirection of the 
powers of art. The imagination of the age was actively set 
to realize these objects of Pagan belief; and all the most 
exalted faculties of man, which, up to that period, had been 
employed in the service of Faith, were now^ transferred to the 
service of Fiction. The invention which had formerly been 
both sanctified and strengthened by labouring under the com- 
mand of settled intention, and on the ground of assured belief, 
had now the reins laid upon its neck by passion, and all 
grounds of fact cut from beneath its feet ; and the imagination 
which formerly had helped men to apprehend the truth, now 
tempted them to believe a falsehood. The faculties them- 
selves wasted away in their own treason ; one by one they fell 
in the potters' field ; and the Raphael w^ho seemed sent and 
inspired from heaven that he might paint Aj^ostles and Pro- 
phets, sank at once into powerlessness at the feet of Apollo 
and the Muses. 

But this was not all. The habit of using the greatest gifts 
of imagination upon fictitious subjects, of course destroyed 
the honour and value of the same imagination used in the cause 
of truth. Exactly in the proportion in w^hich Jupiters and 
Mercuries were embodied and believed, in that proportion 
Virgins and Angels w^ere disembodied and disbelieved. The 
images summoned by art began gradually to assume one 



PKECI(>US THOUGHTS. 325 

average value in tlie spectator's mind ; and incidents from 
the Iliad and from the Exodus to come within the same 
degrees of credibility. 



THE TWO BOYHOODS. 

Born half-way between the mountains and the sea — that 
young George of Castelfranco — of the Brave Castle : — Stout 
George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy 
he was — Giorgione. 

Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on — '■ 
fair, searching eyes of youth ? What a world of mighty life, 
from those mountain roots to the shore ; — of loveliest life, 
when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city — and 
became himself as a fiery heart to it ? 

A city of marble, did I say ? nay, rather a golden city, 
paved with emerald. For truly, every pinnacle and turret 
glanced or glowed, overlaid with gold, or bossed with jasper. 
Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathing, to and 
fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic, terri- 
ble as the sea, — the men of Venice moved in sway of power 
and war ; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers 
and maidens ; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her 
knights ; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot 
angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds. Fearless, faithful, 
patient, impenetrable, imiDlacable, — every word a fate, — sate 
her senate. In hope and honour, lulled by flowing of wave 
around their isles of sacred sand, each with his name written 
and the cross graved at his side, lay her dead. A wonderful 
piece of world. Rather, itself a world. It lay along the face 
of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw it from their masts 



326 PRECIOUS THOTJGHTS. 

at evening, than a bar of sunset that could not pass away ; 
but, for its power, it must have seemed to thera as if they 
were sailing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great planet, 
whose orient edge widened through ether. A world from 
which all ignoble care and petty thoughts were banished, 
Avith all the common and poor elements of life. No foulness, 
nor tumult, in those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell, be- 
neath the moon ; but rippled music of majestic change, or 
thrilling silence. No weak walls could rise above them ; no 
low-roofed cottage, nor straw-built shed. Only. the strength 
as of rock, and the finished setting of stones most precious. 
And around them, far as the eye could reach, still the soft 
moving of stainless waters, proudly pure ; as not the flower, 
so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the glanc- 
ing fields. Ethereal strength of Alps, dream-like, vanishing 
in high procession beyond the Torcellan shore ; blue islands 
of Paduan hills, poised in the golden west. Above, free winds 
and fiery clouds ranging at their will ; — ^brightness out of the 
north, and balm from the south, and the stars of the evening 
and morning clear in the limitless light of arched heaven and 
circling sea. 

Such was Giorgione's school — such Titian's home. 
Near the south-west corner of Covent Garden, a square 
brick pit or well is formed by a close-set block of houses, to 
the back windows of which it admits a few rays of light. 
Access to the bottom of it is obtained out of Maiden Lane, 
through a low archway and an iron gate ; and if you stand 
long enough under tiie archway to accustom your eyes to the 
darkness, you may see on the left hand a narrow door, which 
formerly gave quiet access to a respectable barber's shop, of 
which the front window, looking into Maiden Lane, is still 
extant, filled in this year (1860), with a row of bottles, con- 
nected, in some defunct manner, with a brewer's business. A 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 327 

more fashionable neighbourhood, it is said, eighty years ago 
tlian now — never certainly a cheerful one — wherein a boy 
being born on St. George's day, 1775, began soon after to 
take interest in the world of Covent Garden, and pat to sei-- 
vice such spectacles of life as it afforded. 

Xo knights to be seen there, nor, I imagine, many beauti- 
ful ladies ; their costume at least disadvantageous, depending 
much on incumbency of hat and feather, and short waists ; 
the majesty of men founded similarly on shoebuckles and 
wigs ; — impressive enough when Reynolds will do his best 
for it ; but not suggestive of much ideal delight to a boy. 

" Bello ovile dov' io dormii agnello :" of things beautiful, 
besides men and women, dusty sunbeams up or down the 
street on summer mornings ; deep furrowed cabbage leaves 
at the ffreeno-rocer's : magnificence of orans^es in wheelbar- 
rows round the corner ; and Thames' shore within three 
minutes' race. 

Xone of these things very glorious; the best, however, 
that England, it seems, was then able to provide for a boy of 
gift : who, such as they are, loves them — never, indeed, for- 
gets them. The short waists modify to the last his visions of 
Greek ideal. His foregrounds had always a succulent cluster 
or two of greengrocery at the corners. Enchanted oranges 
gleam in Covent Gardens of the Hesperides ; and great ships 
go to pieces in order to scatter chests of them on the waves. 
Tliat mist of early sunbeams in the London dawn crosses, 
many and many a time, the clearness of Italian air ; and by 
Thames' shore, with its stranded barges and glidings of red 
sail, dearer to us than Lucerne lake or Venetian lagoon, — by 
Thames' shore we will die. 

With such circumstance round hira in youth, let us note 
what necessary effects followed upon the boy. T assume him 
to have had Giorgione's sensibility (and more than Gior- 



328 • PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

gione's, if that be possible) to colour and form. I tell you 
farther, and this fact you may receive trustfully, that his 
sensibility to human affection and distress was no less keen 
than even his sense for natural beauty — beart-sight deep as 
eye-sight. 

Consequently, he attaches himself with the faithfullest 
child-love to everything tbat bears an image of the place he 
was born in. No matter how ugly it is, — has it anything 
about it like Maiden Lane, or like Thames' shore ? If so, it 
shall be painted for their sake. Hence, to the very close of 
life, Turner could endure ugliness which no one else of the 
same sensibility would have borne with for an instant. Dead 
brick walls, blank square windows, old clothes, market- 
womanly types of humanity — anything fishy and muddy, like 
Billingsgate or Hungerford Market, had great attraction for 
him ; black barges, patched sails, and every possible condi- 
tion of fog. 

" That mysterious forest below London Bridge " — better 
for the boy than wood of pine, or grove of myrtle. How he 
must have tormented the watermen, beseeching them to let 
him crouch anywhere in the bows, quiet as a log, so only that 
he might get floated down there among the ships, and round 
and round the ships, and with the ships, and by the ships, and 
under the ships, staring and clambering ; — these the only 
quite beautiful things he can see in all the world, except the 
sky ; but these, when the sun is on their sails, filling or falling, 
endlessly disordered by sway of tide and stress of anchorage, 
beautiful unspeakably ; which ships also are inhabited by glo- 
rious creatures — red-faced sailors, with pipes, appearing over 
the gunwales, true knights, over their castle parapets — the 
most angelic beings in the whole compass of London world. 
And Trafalgar happening long before we can draw ships, we, 
nevertheless, coax all current stories out of the wounded 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 320 

sailors, do onr best at present to show Nelson's funeral 
streaming up the Thames ; and vow that Trafalgar shall have 
its tribute of memory some day. Which, accordingly, is 
accomplished — once, with all our might, for its death ; twice, 
with all our might, for its victory ; thrice, in pensive farewell 
to tlie old Temeraire, and, with it, to that order of things. 

Xow this fond companying with sailors must have divided 
his time, it appears to me, pretty equally between Covent 
Garden and Wapping (allowing for incidental excursions to 
Chelsea on one side, and Greenwich on the other), which 
time he would spend pleasantly, but not magnificently, being 
limited in pocket-money, and leading a kind of " Poor Jack" 
life on the river. 

In some respects, no life could be better for a lad. But it 
was not calculated to make his ear line to the niceties of lan- 
guage, nor form his moralities on an entirely regular stand- 
ard. Picking up his first scraps of vigorous English chiefly 
at Deptford and in the markets, and his first ideas of female 
teuflerness and beauty among nymphs of the barge and the 
barrow — another boy might, perhaps, have become what 
people usually term " vulgar." But the original make and 
frame of Turner's mind being not vulgar, but as nearly as 
possible a combination of the minds of Keats and Dante, 
joining capricious waywardness and intense openness to 
every fine pleasure of sense, and hot defiance of formal pre- 
cedent, with a quite infinite tenderness, generosity, and desire 
of justice and truth — this kind of mind did not become vul- 
gar, but very tolerant of vulgarity, even fond of it in some 
forms ; and, on the outside, visibly infected by it, deeply 
enough ; the curious result, in its combination of elements, 
being to most people wholly incomprehensible. It was as if a 
cable had been woven of blood-ciimson silk, and then tarred 
on the outside. People handled it, and the tar came off on 



3.30 PRECIOUS THOFGHTS. 

their hands ; red gleams were seen through the black, under- 
neath, at the places where it had been strained. Was it 
ochre ? — said the world, or red lead ? 

Schooled thus in manners, literature, and general moral 
principles at Chelsea and Wapping, we have finally to inquire 
concerning the most important point of all. We have seen 
the principal differences between this boy and Giorgione, as 
respects sight of the beautiful, understanding of poverty, of 
commerce, and of order of battle ; then follows another 
cause of difference in our training — not slight, — the aspect of 
religion, namely, in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. I 
say the aspect ; for that was all tlie lad could judge by. Dis- 
posed, for the most part, to learn chiefly by his eyes, in this 
special matter he finds there is really no other way of learn- 
ing. His father taught him " to lay one penny upon ano- 
ther." Of mother's teaching, we hear of none ; of parish 
pastoral teaching, the reader may guess how much. 

I choose Giorgione rather than Veronese to help me in 
carrying out this parallel ; because I do not find in Gior- 
gione's work any of the early Venetian monachist element. 
He seems to me to have belonged more to an abstract con- 
templative school. I may be wrong in this ; it is no matter ; 
— suppose it were so, and that he came down to Venice some- 
what recusant, or insentient, concerning the usual priestly 
doctrines of his day, — how would the Venetian religion, from 
an outer intellectual standing-point, have looked to him ? 

He would have seen it to be a religion indisputably power- 
ful in human affairs ; often very harmfully so ; sometimes 
devouring widows' houses, and consuming the strongest and 
fairest from among the young ; freezing into merciless 
bigotry the policy of the old : also, on the other hand, ani- 
mating national courage, and raising souls, otherwise sordid, 
into heroism : on the whole, always a real and great power ; 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 331 

served with daily sacrifice of gold, time, and thought ; put- 
ting forth its claims, if hypocritically, at least in bold hypo- 
crisy, not waiving any atom of them in doubt or fear ; and, 
assuredly, in large measure, sincere, believing in itself, and 
believed : a goodly system, moreover, in aspect ; gorgeous, 
harmonious, mysterious; — a thing w^hich had either to be 
obeyed or combated, but could not be scorned. A religion 
towering over all the city — many buttressed — luminous in 
marble stateliness, as the dome of our Lady of Safety shines 
over the sea ; many-voiced also, giving, over all the eastern 
seas, to the sentinel his watchword, to the soldier his war- 
cry ; and, on the lips of all who died for Venice, shaping the 
whisper of death. 

I suppose the boy Turner to have regarded the religion of 
his city also from an external intellectual standing-point. 

What did he see in Maiden Lane ? 

Let not the reader be oflfended with me ; I am willing to 
let him describe, at his own pleasure,what Turner saw there ; 
but to me, it seems to have been this. A religion maintained 
occasionally, even the whole length of the lane, at point of 
constable's staff; but, at other times, placed under the custody 
of the beadle, within certain black and unstately iron railings 
of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Among the wheelbarrows and 
over the vegetables, no perceptible dominance of religion ; 
in the narrow, disquieted streets, none ; in the tongues, deeds, 
daily ways of Maiden Lane, little. Some honesty, indeed, 
and English industry, and kindness of heart, and general idea 
of justice ; but faith, of any national kind, shut up from one 
Sunday to the next, not artistically beautiful even in those 
Sabbatical exhibitions ; its paraphernalia being chiefly of high 
pews, heavy elocution, and cold grimness of behaviour. 

What chiaroscuro belongs to it — (dependent mostly on 
candle light), — we will, however, draw, considerately ; no 



C32 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

goodliness of escutcheon, nor other resj^ectnbiUty being omit- 
ted, and the best of tlieir results confessed, a meek old 
woman and a child being let into a pew, for whom the read- 
ing by candlelight will be beneficial. 

For the rest, this religion seems to him discreditable — 
discredited — not believing in itself, putting forth its authority 
in a cowardly way, watching how far it might be tolerated, 
continually shrinking, disclaiming, fencing, finessing ; divided 
against itself, not by stormy rents, but by thin fissures, and 
splittings of plaster from the walls. Not to be either obeyed, 
or combated, by an ignorant, yet clear-sighted youth ; only 
to be scDrned. And scorned not one wdiit the less, though 
also the dome dedicated to zY looms high over distant winding 
of the Thames ; as St. Mark's campanile rose, for goodly 
landmark, over mirage of lagoon. For St. Mark ruled over 
life ; the Saint of London over death ; St. Mark over St. 
Mark's Place, but St. Paul over St. Paul's Churchyard. 

Under these influences pass away the first reflective hours 
of life, witli such conclusion as they can reach. In conse- 
quence of a fit of illness, he was taken — I cannot ascertain in 
what year — to live with an aunt, at Brentford ; and here, I 
believe, received some schooling, which he seems to have 
snatched vigorously ; getting knowledge, at least by transla- 
tion, of the more picturesque classical authors, which he 
turned presently to use, as we shall see. Hence also, walks 
about Putney and Twickenham in the summer time acquainted 
him with the look of English meadow-ground in its restricted 
states of paddock and park ; and with some round-headed 
appearances of trees, and stately entrances to houses of mark: 
the avenue at Bushy, and the iron gates and carved pillars 
of Hampton, impressing him apparently with great awe and 
admiration ; so that in after life his little country house is, — 
of all places in the world, — at Twickenham I Of swans and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 333 

reedy shores he now learns the soft motion and the green 
mystery, in a way not to be forgotten. 

And at last fortune wills that the lad's true life shall begin ; 
and one summer's evening, after various wonderful stage-coach 
experiences on the north road, which gave him a love of stage- 
coaches ever after, he finds himself sitting alone among the 
Yorkshire hills.* For the first time, the silence of Nature 
romid him, her freedom sealed to him, her glory opened to 
him. Peace at last ; nor roll of cart-wheel, nor mutter of sul- 
len voices in the back shop; but curlew-cry in space of hea- 
ven, and welling of bell-tonecl streamlet by its shadowy rock. 
Freedom at last. Dead-wall, dark railing, fenced field, gated 
garden, all passed away like the dream of a prisoner; and 
behold, far as foot or eye can race or range, the moor, and 
cloud. Loveliness at last. It is here then, among these desert- 
ed vales ! Not among men. Those pale, poverty-struck, or 
cruel faces ; — that multitudinous, marred humanity — are not 
the only things that God has made. Here is something He 
has made which no one has marred. Pride of purple rocks, 
and river pools of blue, and tender wilderness of glittering 
trees, and misty lights of evening on immeasurable hills. 

Beauty, and freedom, and peace ; and yet another teacher, 
graver than these. Sound preaching at last here, in Kirkstall 
crypt, concerning fate and life. Here, where the dark pool 
reflects the chancel pillars, and the cattle lie in unhindered 
rest, the soft sunshine on their dappled bodies, instead of 
priests' vestments ; their white furry hair ruffled a little, fit- 
fully, by the evening wind, deejj-scented from the meadow 
thyme. 

* I do not mean that this is his first acquaintance with the country, but 
the first impressive and touching one, after his mind was formed. Tho 
earliest sketches I found in the National collection are at Clifton and Bris- 
tol; the next, at Oxford. 



334 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Consider deeply the import to him of this, his first sight of 
ruin, and compare it with the effect of the architecture that 
was around Giorgione. There were indeed aged buildings, at 
Venice, in his time, but none in decay. All ruin was removed, 
and its place filled as quickly as in our London ; but filled 
alw^ays by architecture loftier and more wonderful than that 
whose place it took, the boy himself happy to work upon the 
walls of it; so that the idea of the passing away of the 
strength of men and beaut}^ of their works never could occur 
to him sternly. Brighter and brighter the cities of Italy had 
been rising and broadening on hill and plain, for three hun- 
dred years. He saw only strength and immortality, could 
not but paint both ; conceived the form of man as deathless, 
calm with power, and fiery with life. 

Tamer saw the exact reverse of this. In the present work 
of men, meanness, aimlessness, un sightliness : thin-walled, 
lath-divided, narrow-garreted houses of clay; booths of a 
darksome Vanity Fair, busily base. 

But on Whitby Hill, and by Bolton Brook, remained traces 
of other handiwork. Men who could build had been there ; 
and who also had wrought, not merely for their own days. 
But to what purpose ? Strong faith and steady hands, and 
patient souls — can this, then, be all you have left ! this the 
sum of your doing on the earth! — a nest whence the night- 
owl may whimper to the brook, and a ribbed skeleton of con- 
sumed arches, looming above the bleak banks of mist, fi'om 
its cliff to the sea. 

As the strength of men to Giorgione, to Turner their weak- 
ness and vileness, were alone visible. They themselves 
unworthy or ephemeral ; their work, despicable, or decayed. 
In the Venetian's eyes, all beauty depended on man's pre- 
sence and pride ; in Turner's, on the solitude he had left, and 
the humiliation he had suffered. 



PJIECIOUS THOUGHTS. 335 

And thus the fate and issue of all his work were determined 
at once. He must be a painter of the strength of nature, 
there was no beauty elsewhere than in that; he must paint 
also the labour and sorrow and passing away of men ; this 
was the great human truth visible to him. 

Their labour, their sorrow, and their death. Mark the three. 
Labour ; by sea and land, in field and city, at forge and fur- 
nace, helm and plough. No pastoral indolence nor classic 
in'ide shall stand between him and the troublijig of the world : 
still less between him and the toil of his country, — blind, tor- 
mented, unwearied, marvellous England. 

Also their Sorrow ; Ruin of all their glorious work, passing 
away of their thoughts and their honour, mirage of pleasure, 
Fallacy of Hofe ; gathering of weed on temple step ; 
gaining of wave on deserted strand ; weeping of the mother 
for the children, desolate by her breathless first-born in the 
streets of the city, desolate by her last sons slain, among the 
beasts of the field. 

And their Death. That old Greek question again; — yet 
unanswered. The unconquerable spectre still flitting among 
tlie forest trees at twilight ; rising ribbed out of the sea-sand ; 
— white, a strange Aphrodite, — out of the sea-foam ; stretch- 
ing its gray, cloven wings among the clouds; turning the 
light of their sunsets into blood. This has to be looked upon, 
and in a more terrible shape than ever Salvator or Durer saw 
it. The wreck of one guilty country does not infer the i-uin 
of all countries, and need not cause general terror respecting 
the laws of the universe. 

Turner was eighteen years old when Napoleon came down 
on Areola. Look on the map of Europe, and count the 
blood-stains on it, between Areola and Waterloo. 

Not alone those blood-stains on the Alpine snow, and the 
blue of the Lombard plain. The English death was before 



336 PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

his eyes also. No decent, calculable, consoled dying ; no 
passing to rest like that of the aged burghers of Nuremberg 
town. No gentle 2)rocessions to churchyards among the 
fields, the bronze crests bossed deep on the memorial tablets, 
and the skyLirk singing above them from among the corn. 
But the life trampled out in the slime of the street, crushed 
to dust amidst the roaring of the wheel, tossed coimtlessly 
away into howling winter wind along five hundred leagues 
of rock-fanged shore. Or, worst of all, rotted down to for. 
gotten graves through years of ignorant patience, and vain 
seeking for help from man, for hope in God — infirm, imperfect 
yearning, as of motherless infants starving at the dawn ; 
oppressed royalties of captive thought, vague ague-fits of 
bleak, amazed despair. 

So taught, and prepared for his life's labour, sate the boy at 
last alone among his fair English hills ; and began to paint, 
with cautious toil, the rocks, and fields, and trickling brooks, 
and soft, white clouds of heaven. 



WORK AND PLAT. 

What is the proper function of play, with respect not to 
youth merely, but to all mankind ? 

It is a much more serious question than may be at first 
supposed ; for a healthy manner of play is necessary in order 
to a healthy manner of work : and because the choice of our 
recreation is, in most cases, left to ourselves, while the nature 
of our work is as generally fixed by necessity or authority, it 
may be well doubted whether more distressful consequences 
may not have resulted from mistaken choice in play than from 
mistaken direction in labour. 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 337 

Observe, liowever, that we are only concerned, here, with 
that kind of jDlay which causes laughter or imj)lies recreation, 
not with that which consists in the excitement of the energies 
wiiether of body or mind. Muscular exertion is, indeed, in 
youth, one of the conditions of recreation ; "but neither the 
violent bodily labour which children of all ages agree to call 
play," nor the grave excitement of the mental faculties in 
games of skill or chance, are in anywise connected with the 
state of feeling we have here to investigate, namely, that 
sportiveness which man possesses in common with many infe- 
rior creatures, but to which his higher faculties give nobler 
expression in the various manifestations of wit, humour, and 
fancy. 

With respect to the manner in which this instinct of play- 
fulness is indulged or repressed, mankind are broadly distin- 
guishable into four classes: the men who play wisely; who 
play necessarily ; who play inordinately ; and w^jo play not 
at all. 

First: Those who play wdsely. It is evident that the 
idea of any kind of j^lay can only be associated with the idea 
of an imperfect, childish, and fatigable nature. As far as 
men can raise that nature, so that it shall no longer be inter- 
ested by trifles or exhausted by toils, they raise it above 
play ; he whose heart is at once fixed upon heaven, and open 
to the earth, so as to apprehend the importance of heavenly 
doctrines, and the compass of human sorrow, will have little 
disposition for jest; and exactly in proportion to the breadth 
and depth of his character and intellect, will be, in general, 
the incapability of surprise, or exuberant and sudden emotion, 
which must render play impossible. It is, however, evidently 
not intended that many men should even reach, far less pass 
their lives in, that solemn state of thoughtfuluess, which 
brings them into the nearest brotherhood with their Divine 

15 



338 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Master ; and the Inghest and healthiest state which is compe- 
tent to ordinary humanity appears to be that which, accept- 
ing the necessity of recreation, and yielding to the impulses 
of natural delight springing out of health and innocence, does, 
indeed, condescend often to playfulness, but never without 
such deep love of God, of truth, and of humanity, as shall 
make even its slightest words reverent, its idlest fancies pro- 
fitable, and its keenest satire indulgent. Wordsworth and 
Plato furnish us with, perhaps, the finest and highest exam- 
ples of this playfulness : in the one case, unmixed with satire, 
the perfectly simple effusion of that spirit 

" Which gives to all the self-same bent, 
Whose hfe is wise, and innocent ;" 

— in Plato, and, by the by, in ^ very wise book of our own 
times, not i\nworthy of being named in such companionship, 
" Friends in Council," mingled with an exquisitely tender and 
loving satire. 

Secondly: The men who play necessarily. That highest 
species of playfulness, which we have just been considering, 
is evidently the condition of a mind, not only highly culti- 
vated, but so habitually trained to intellectual labour that it 
can bring a considerable force of accurate thought into its 
moments even of recreation. This is not possible, unless so 
much repose of mind and heart are enjoyed, even at the periods 
of greatest exertion, that the rest required by the system is 
diffused over the whole life. To the majority of mankind, 
such a state is evidently unattainable. They must, perforce, 
pass a large part of their lives in employments both irksome 
and toilsome, demanding an expenditure of energy which 
exhausts the system, and yet consuming that energy upon sub- 
jects incapable of interesting the nobler faculties. When 
such employments are intermitted, those noble instincts, 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 339 

fancy, imagination, and curiosity, are all hungry for the food 
which the labour of the day has denied to them, while yet the 
weariness of the body, in a great degree, forbids their applica- 
tion to any serious subject. They therefore exert themselves 
without any determined purj^ose, and under no vigorous 
restraint, but gather, as best they may, such various nourish- 
ment, and put themselves to such fantastic exercise, as may 
soonest indemnify them for their past imprisonment, and pre- 
pare them to endure their recurrence. This sketching of the 
mental limbs as their fetters f^ill away, — this leaping and danc- 
ing of the heart and intellect, when they are restored to the 
fresh air of heaven, yet half paralyzed by their captivity, and 
unable to turn themselves to any earnest purpose, — I call 
necessary play. It is impossible to exaggerate its import- 
ance, whether in polity, or in art. 

Thirdly : The men who play inordinately. The most per- 
fect state of society which, consistently with due under- 
standing of man's nature, it may be i^ermitted us to conceive, 
would be one in which the whole human race were divided, 
more or less distinctly, into workers and thinkers ; that is to 
say, into the two classes, who only play wisely, or play neces- 
sarily. But the number and the toil of the working class are 
enormously increased, probably more than doubled, by the 
vices of the men who neither play wisely nor necessarily, but 
are enabled by circumstances, and jDermitted by their want 
of principle, to make amusement the object of their existence. 
There is not any moment of the lives of such men which is 
not injurious to others; both because they leave the work 
undone which was appointed for them, and because they 
necessarily think wrongly, whenever it becomes compulsory 
upon them to think at all. The greater portion of the misery 
of this world arises from the false oj)inions of men whose idle- 
ness has physically incapacitated them from forming true 



340 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ones. Every duty which we omit obscures some truth which 
we should have known ; and the guilt of a life spent in the 
pursuit of pleasure is twofold, partly consisting in the per- 
version of action, and partly in the dissemination of false- 
hood. 

There is, however, a less criminal, though hardly less dan- 
gerous condition of mind ; which, though not failing in its 
more urgent duties, fails in the finer conscientiousness which 
regulates the degree, and directs the choice, of amusement, 
at those times when amusement is allowable. The most fre- 
quent error in this respect is the want of reverence in 
approaching subjects of importance or sacredness, and of 
caution in the expression of thoughts which may encourage 
like irreverence in others : and these faults are apt to gain 
upon the mind until it becomes habitually more sensible to 
what is ludicrous and accidental, than to wbat is grave and 
essential, in any subject that is brought before it ; or even, at 
last, desires to perceive or to know nothing but what may 
end in jest. Very generally minds of this character are 
active and able ; and many of them are so far conscientious, 
that they believe their jesting forwards their work. ,. But it is 
difficult to calculate the harm they do, by destroying the reve- 
rence which is our best guide into all truth ; for weakness 
and evil are easily visible, but greatness and goodness are 
often latent ; and we do infinite mischief by exposing weak- 
ness to eyes which cannot comprehend greatness. This 
error, however, is more connected with abuses of the satirical 
than of the playful instinct ; and I shall have more to say of 
it presently. 

The men who do not play at all : those who are so dull or so 
morose as to be incapable of inventing or enjoying jest, and 
in whom care, guilt, or pride represses all healthy exhilaration 
of the fancy ; or else men utterly oppressed with labour, and 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 341 

driven too hard by the necessities of the world to be capable 
of any species of happy relaxation. We have next to consi- 
der the expression throughout of the minds of men who 
indulge themselves in unnecessary play. It is evident that a 
large number of these men will be more refined and more 
highly educated than those who only play necessarily ; their 
power of pleasure-seeking implies, in general, fortunate cir- 
cumstances of life. It is evident also that their play will not 
be so hearty, so simple, or so joyful ; and this deficiency of 
brightness will affect it in proportion to its unnecessary and 
unlawful continuance, until at last it becomes a restless and 
dissatisfied indulgence in excitement, or a painful delving 
after exhausted springs of pleasure. 



THE STATES OP THE FOREST. 

It was not from their lakes, nor their cliffs, nor their gla- 
ciers — though these were all peculiarly their possession, that 
the three venerable cantons or states received their name. 
They were not called the States of the Rock, nor the States 
of the Lake, but the States of the Forest. And the one of 
the three which contains the most touching record of the spi- 
ritual power of Swiss religion, in the name of the convent of 
theT"" Hill of Angels," has, for its own, none but the sweet 
childish name of " Under the Woods." 

And indeed you may pass under them if, leaving the most 
sacred spot in Swiss history, the Meadow of the Three Foun- 
tains, you bid the boatman row southward a little way by 
the shore of the Bay of Uri. Steepest there on its western 
side, the walls of its rocks ascend to heaven. Far, in the 
blue of evening, like a great cathedral pavement, lies the lake 



342 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

ill its darkness; and you may hear the whisper of innume- 
rable falling waters return fi-om the hollows of the cliff, like 
the voices of a multitude praying under their breath. From 
time to time the beat of a wave, slow lifted, where the rocks 
lean over the black depth, dies heavily as the last note of a 
requiem. Opposite, green with steep grass, and set with 
chalet villages, the Fron-Alp rises in one solemn glow of pas- 
toral light and -peace ; and above, against the clouds of twi- 
light, ghostly on the gray precipice, stand, myriad by myriad, 
the shadowy armies of the Unterwalden pine. 

I have seen that it is possible for the stranger to pass 
through this great chapel, with its font of waters, and moun- 
tain pillars, and vaults of cloud, without being touched by 
one noble thought, or stirred by any sacred passion ; but for 
those who received from its waves the baptism of their youth, 
and learned beneath its rocks the fidelity of their manhood, 
and watched amidst its clouds the likeness of the dream of 
life, with the eyes of age — for these I will not believe that 
the mountain shrine was built, or the calm of its forest-shadows 
guarded by their God, in vain. 



THE PAGAN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 

The Pagan system is completely triumphant ; and the entire 
body of the so-called Christian world has established a system 
of instruction for its youth, wherein neither the history of 
Christ's Church, nor the language of God's law, is considered 
a study of the smallest importance ; wherein, of all subjects 
of human inquiry, his own religion is the one in which a youth's 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 343 

ignorance is most easily forgiven* ; and in which it is held a 
light matter that he should be daily guilty of lying, of debau- 
chery, or of blasphemy, so only that he write Latin verses 
accurately, and with speed. 

I believe that in a few years more we shall wake from all 
these errors in astonishment, as from evil dreams; having 
been preserved, in the midst of their madness, by those hidden 
roots of active and earnest Christianity which God's grace 
has bound in the English nation mth iron and brass. But in 
the Venetian, those roots themselves had withered ; and, from 
the palace of their ancient religion, their pride cast them 
forth hopelessly to the pasture of the brute. From pride to 
infidelity, from infidelity to the unscrupulous and insatiable 
pursuit of pleasure, and from this to irremediable degradation, 
the transitions were swift, like the falling of a star. The 
great palaces of the haughtiest nobles of Venice were stayed, 
before they had risen far above their foundations, by the blast 
of a penal poverty ; and the wild grass, on the unfinished 
fragments of their mighty shafts, waves at the tide-mark 
where the power of the godless people first heard the 
" Hitherto shalt thou come." And the regeneration in which 
they had so vainly trusted, — the new birth and clear dawning, 
as they thought it, of all art, all knowledge, and all hoj^e, — 
became to them as that dawn which Ezekiel saw on the hills 
of Israel : " Behold the day ; behold, it is come. The rod~ 
hath blossomed, pride hath budded, violence is risen up into 
a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, nor of 
their multitude ; let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller 
mourn, for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof" 

* I shall not forget the impression made upon me at Oxford, when, going 
up for my degree, and mentioning to one of the authorities that I had not 
had time enough to read the Epistles properly, I was told, that " the Epis- 
tles were separate sciences, and I need not trouble myself about them." 



344 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

The fact is, we distrust each other and ourselves. We 
know that if, on any occasion of general intercourse, we turn 
to our next neighbour, and put to him some searching or test- 
ing question, we shall, in nine cases out of ten, discover him 
to be only a Christian in his own way, and as far as he thinks 
proper, and that he doubts of many things which we our- 
selves do not believe strongly enough to hear doubted with- 
out danger. What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, 
we call charity ; and consider it the part of benevolence some- 
times to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accu- 
rate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for 
the sake of their admirable practice. And under this shelter 
of charity, humility, and faintheartedness, the world, unques- 
tioned by others or by itself, mingles with and overwhelms 
the small body of Christians, legislates for them, moralizes 
for them, reasons for them ; and, though itself of course 
greatly and beneficently influenced by the association, and 
held much in check by its pretence to Christianity, yet under- 
mines, in nearly the same degree, the sincerity and practical 
power of Christianity itself. 



THEOLOGY OF SPENSER. 

The following analysis of the first books of the "Faerie 
Queen," may be interesting to readers who have been in the 
habit of reading the noble poem too hastily to connect its 
parts completely together ; and may perhaps induce them to 
more careful study of the rest of the poem. 

The Redcrosse Knight is Holiness, — the "Pietas" of St. 
Mark's, the " Devotio " of Orcagna, — meaning, I think, in 
general, Reverence and Godly Fear. 



PKECIOUS THOUGHTS. 345 

This virtue, in the opening of the book, has Truth (or Una) 
at its side, but presently enters the Wandering Wood, and 
encounters the serpent Error; that is to say. Error in her 
universal form, the first enemy of Reverence and Hohness ; 
and more especially Error as founded on learning ; for when 
Holiness strangles her, 

" Her Yomit full of hookes and papers loas, 
With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke." 

Having vanquished this first open and palpable form of 
Error, as Reverence and Rehgion must always vanquish it, 
the Knight encounters Hypocrisy, or Archimagus : HoHness 
cannot detect Hypocrisy, but believes him, and goes home 
with him ; whereupon Hypocrisy succeeds in separating Holi- 
ness from Truth ; and the Knight (Holiness) and Lady (Truth) 
go forth separately from the house of Archimagus. 

Now observe, the moment Godly Fear, or Holiness, is sepa- 
rated from Truth, he meets Infidelity, or the Knight Sans Foy ; 
Infidelity having Falsehood, or Duessa, riding behind him. 
The instant the Redcrosse Knight is aware of the attack of 
Infidelity, he 

" Gan fairly couch his speare, and towards ride." 

He vanquishes and slays Infidelity ; but is deceived by his 
companion. Falsehood, and takes her for his lady : thus show- 
ing the condition of Religion, when, after being attacked by 
Doubt, and remaining victorious, it is nevertheless seduced, by 
any form of Falsehood, to pay reverence where it ought not. 
This, then, is the first fortune of Godly Fear separated from 
Truth. The poet then returns to Truth, separated from 
Godly Fear. She is immediately attended by a lion, or 
Violence, which makes her dreaded wherever she comes ; and 
when she enters the mart of Superstition, this Lion tears 

15* 



346 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Kirkrapme m pieces: showing how Truth, separated from 
Godhness, does indeed put an end to the abuses of Super- 
stition, but does so violently and des23erately. She then meets 
again with Hypocrisy, whom she mistakes for her own lord, 
or Godly Fear, and travels a little way under his guardianship 
(Hypocrisy thus not unfrequently appearing to defend the. 
Truth), until they are both met by Lawlessness, or the Knight 
Sans Loy, whom Hypocrisy cannot resist. Lawlessness over- 
throws Hypocrisy, and seizes upon Truth, first slaying her 
lion attendant : showing that the first aim of licence is to 
destroy the force and authority of Truth. Sans Loy then 
takes Truth captive, and bears her away. ISlow this Lawless- 
ness is the " unrighteousness," or " adikia," of St. Paul ; and 
his bearing Truth away captive, is a type of those " who hold 
the truth in unrighteousness," — that is to say, generally, of 
men who, knowing what is true, make the truth give way to 
their own purposes, or use it only to forward them, as is the 
case with so many of the popular leaders of the present day. 
Una is then delivered from Sans Loy by the satyrs, to show 
that Nature, in the end, must work out the deliverance of tlie 
truth, although, where it has been captive to Lawlessness, that 
deliverance can only be obtained through Savageness, and a 
return to barbarism. Una is then taken from among the 
satyrs by Satyrane, the son of a satyr and a " lady myld, fair 
Thyamis," (typifying the early steps of renewed civilization, 
and its rough and hardy character " nousled up in life and 
maners wilde,") who, meeting again with Sans Loy, enters 
instantly into rough and prolonged combat with him : show- 
ing bow the early organization of a hardy nation must be 
wrought out through much discouragement from Lawlessness. 
This contest the poet leaving for the time undecided, returns 
to trace the adventures of the Redcrosse Knight, or Godly 
Fear, who, having vanquished Infidelity, presently is led by 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 



347 



Falsehood to the house of Pride : thus showing how religion, 
separated from truth, is first tempted by doubts of God, ami 
then by the pride of life. The description of this house of 
Pride is one of the most elaborate and noble pieces in the 
poem ; and here we begin to get at the proposed system of 
Virtues and Vices. For Pride, as queen, has six other vices 
yoked in her chariot ; namely, first, Idleness, then Gluttony, 
Lust, Avarice, Envy, and Anger, all driven on by "Sathan, 
with a smarting whip in hand." From these lower vices and 
their company, Godly Fear, though lodging in the house of 
Pride, holds aloof; but he is challenged, and has a hard battle 
to fight with Sans Joy, the brother of Sans Foy: showing, 
that though he has conquered Infidelity, and does not give 
himself up to the allurements of Pride, he is yet exposed, so 
long as he dwells in her house, to distress of mind and loss 
of his accustomed rejoicing before God. He, however, hav- 
ing partly conquered Despondency, or Sans Joy, Falsehood 
goes down to Hades, in order to obtain drugs to maintain the 
power or life of Despondency ; but, meantime, the Knight 
leaves the house of Pride ; Falsehood pursues and overtakes 
him, and finds him by a fountain side, of which the waters 



are 



" Dull and slow, 
And all that drinke thereof do faint and feeble grow." 

Of which the meaning is, that Godly Fear, after passing 
through the house of Pride, is exposed to drowsiness and 
feebleness of watch ; as, after Peter's boast, came Peter's sleep- 
ing, from weakness of the flesh, and then, last of all, Peter's 
fall. And so it follows: for the Redcrosse Knight, being 
overcome with faintness by drinking of the fountain, is there- 
upon attacked by the giant Orgoglio, overcome, and thrown 
by him into a dungeon. This Orgoglio is Orgueil, or Carnal 



348 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 

Pride ; not the pride of life, spiritual and subtle, but the com- 
iTton and vulgar pride in the power of this world ; and his 
throwing the Redcrosse Knight into a dungeon, is a type of 
the captivity of true religion under the corporal power of 
corrupt churches, more especially of the Church of Rome ; 
and of its gradually wasting away in unknown places, while 
carnal pride has the preeminence over all things. That Spen- 
ser means, especially, the pride of the Papacy, is shown by 
the 16th stanza of the book; for there the giant Orgoglio is 
said to have taken Duessa, or Falsehood, for his "deare," and 
to have set upon her head a triple crown, and endowed her 
with royal majesty, and made her to ride upon'a seven-headed 
beast. 

In the meantime, the dwarf, the attendarufc of the Red- 
crosse Knight, takes his arms, and finding Una tells her of the 
captivity of her lord. Una, in the midst of her mourning, 
meets Prince Arthur, in whom, as Spenser himself tells us, is 
set forth generally Magnificence ; but who, as is shown by the 
choice of the hero's name, is more especially the magnificence, 
or literally, " great doing " of the kingdom of England. This 
power of England, going forth with Truth, attacks Orgoglio, 
or the Pride of Papacy, slays him ; strips Duessa, or False- 
hood, naked : and liberates the Redcrosse Knight. The mag- 
nificent and well known description of Despair follows, by 
whom the Redcrosse Knight is hard bested, on account of his 
past errors and captivity, and is only saved by Truth, w^ho, 
perceiving him to be still feeble, brings him to the house of 
Ccelia, called, in the argument of the canto, Holiness, but 
properly. Heavenly Grace, the mother of the Virtues. Her 
"three daughters, well upbrought," are Faith, Hope, ana 
Charity. Her porter is Humility ; because Humility opens the 
door of Heavenly Grace. Zeal and Reverence are her cham- 
berlains, introducing the new comers to her presence; her 



PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 349 

groom, or servant, is Obedience ; and her physician, Patience. 
Under the commands of Charity, the matron Mercy rules over 
her bosi^ital, under whose care the knight is healed of his 
sickness ; and it is to be esj^ecially noticed how much import- 
ance Spenser, though never ceasing to chastise all hypocrisies 
and mere observances of form, attaches to true and faithful 
penance in effecting this cure. Having his strength restored 
to him, the Knight is trusted to the guidance of Mercy, who, 
leading him forth by a narrow and thorny way, first instructs 
him in the seven works of Mercy, and then leads him to the 
hill of Heavenly Contemplation ; whence, having a sight of 
the New Jerusalem, as Christian of the Delectable Moun- 
tains, he goes forth to the final victory over Satan, the old 
serpent, with which the book closes. 



THE END. 



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